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JFK Jr.’s body was found 116 feet underwater just hours after search team considered calling off mission
The body of John F. Kennedy Jr. was discovered 116 feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean just hours after officials began to contemplate whether to abandon the search operation, the man who led the mission has recently revealed.
Coast Guard Capt. W. Russell "Russ" Webster, who served as incident commander during the search, explained how narrowly the team may have missed finding Kennedy’s remains, revealing that there had been discussion over whether search efforts should continue a matter of hours before.
After Kennedy’s aircraft disappeared on the night of July 16, 1999, US authorities launched one of the largest maritime search operations in the country's history to locate the missing private aircraft and its passengers.
Former Coast Guard reveals how search for JFK Jr. was almost called off
After four days without any sightings, officials were reportedly discussing how to bring the operation to an end, with Kennedy, his wife Carolyn Bessette, and her sister Lauren vanishing while traveling to Martha's Vineyard for the wedding of Kennedy's cousin.
However, as the team considered its next steps, sophisticated sonar equipment finally detected Kennedy's body on the seabed, around 10 feet from the wreckage of the plane, with Carolyn and Lauren still strapped into their seats inside the aircraft.
With the wreckage located roughly seven miles off the southwest coast of Martha's Vineyard, Webster disclosed the considerations of authorities, "[John F. Kennedy Jr.] was outside the aircraft, and there was a consideration that had another day passed, that in the 1.6-knot current, that he might've been swept away," he told The Post.
"They might have never found him had another day gone by," Webster’s wife, maritime historian Theresa Mitchell Webster, recollected.
The couple have since co-authored The Last Flight: The Untold Story of the Search for JFK Jr. and the Race Against the Atlantic, detailing the comprehensive efforts to find the missing plane, which was located using side-scanning sonar and a video camera.
The following morning, five days after the crash, divers recovered all three bodies from the wreckage and surrounding seabed.
Kennedy, 38, had been piloting his Saratoga II through dense haze when the aircraft went down, with those onboard Carolyn and her sister Lauren, reportedly distinguished partly through their different hair colours.
"The NTSB forensic anthropologist told us that the girls were not facially recognizable," Theresa claimed.
According to Russell, Kennedy was flying under visual flight rules, meaning he was relying on what he could see around him rather than navigating using instruments.
"The FAA was not tracking his plane; he was confident that he could navigate by site and geographic references, like lighthouses and factories," Russell explained.
Kennedy had completed the journey from New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard around 35 times previously, but he had not finished his instrument training, having completed just 12 of the 25 modules required for his certified flight instructor qualification.
Russell, who spent 26 years serving in the Coast Guard, said one of Kennedy's instructors had warned him about his readiness to fly in such conditions.
"On July 1st, 15 days before he flew, one of his certified flight instructors said, 'John, you're not ready yet for this. You need more experience with instruments,'" he revealed.
Kennedy's limited experience with instrument flying left him less equipped to navigate poor visibility and may have contributed to spatial disorientation, with the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation finding that the aircraft descended at approximately 4,700 feet per minute before hitting the water.
"Water is only marginally less than cement at that speed [almost 60 mph] and coming from that altitude," Russell said.
The search team faced enormous pressure to locate the bodies, aircraft, and personal belongings before they could be lost to ocean currents or disturbed by marine scavengers.
Russell, who worked on around 10,000 missions during his career, estimated the operation cost at as much as $5 million, after it covered an area stretching approximately 100 nautical miles between Cape Cod and Long Island and involved thousands of personnel from at least 28 local, state, and federal agencies.
The Webster's book details the comprehensive search efforts
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The Websters spent 15 years researching and writing their book, conducting nearly 45 interviews to piece together the events surrounding the disappearance and search.
"One of the reasons we were able to finally write this book was the fact that many of the people that had said they did not want to participate earlier had retired from federal service and became more talkative, more reflective. And they knew how important it was to tell this story," Russell said.
Meanwhile, the Coast Guard received numerous calls from people claiming to have information about the missing passengers, including some who believed the trio might still be alive.
"One was that John F. Kennedy Jr. was in an AOL chat room. People, I think, were grasping at straws," Russell said.
Officials also received a fax from an unnamed spiritual organization in New York City claiming to have determined that the passengers were dead by examining their "magnetic auras".
Russell said the message stood out because it arrived on the first Sunday that the Unified Command Post was operating.
"The reason I remembered that so vividly was it was the very first external communication that we received on Sunday when the Unified Command Post opened up. And it was like, 'Oh my God, this is so, so bizarre.'"