NTSB: Pilot disorientation led to fatal JFK Jr. crash

July 6, 2000
Web posted at: 12:02 p.m. EDT (1602 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly a year after John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane spiraled into the ocean, killing him, his wife and her sister, a report by federal investigators released Thursday concludes that the son of the late president became disoriented in the night sky and lost control of the aircraft.

The National Transportation Safety Board blamed the accident on "the pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane" in the July 16, 1999, crash off the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

The board blames the crash on "spatial disorientation,'' confusion in the brain that results from a loss of balance in the inner ear.

Excerpts from NTSB report: "Probable cause: The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation. Factors in the accident were haze, and the dark night." "The airplane's rate of descent eventually exceeded 4,700 feet per minute, and the airplane struck the water in a nose-down attitude." "The pilot and passengers died from multiple injuries as a result of an airplane accident. Toxicological tests were negative for alcohol and drugs of abuse."   MESSAGE BOARD JFK Jr. crash report     RESOURCES Click here for the NTSB report on the Kennedy crash

The report also says that federal investigators found no mechanical problems with Kennedy's Piper Saratoga II, and that an examination of all three victims found no abnormalities.

Killed were Kennedy, 38; his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, 33, and her 34-year-old sister, Lauren Bessette.

Contributing to Kennedy's disorientation, the report said, were the night sky, a lack of visible horizon over the open water and a haze that blanketed Kennedy's flight path from New Jersey over Long Island Sound to the Vineyard.

While the weather that night met the criteria for legal flight under visual flight rules, a pilot who doesn't have visual references may have difficulty determining whether the plane is climbing, descending or in a turn.

Typically, pilots in trouble are taught to ignore physical sensations and instead follow a recovery regime that includes focusing on key navigation equipment.

In April 1998, Kennedy received his private pilot's license, which allowed him to fly both day and night but only in good visibility.

He had accumulated more than 300 hours of flight time and was working on obtaining an instrument rating, but had not completed the training. Without the ability to fly solely by reference to instruments, pilots often lose control of their aircraft, sometimes within seconds.

Kennedy, the namesake and son of the nation's 35th president, and his wife had been planning to drop off her sister before flying on to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a family wedding the following day.

Instead, their plane mysteriously plunged out of the sky.

After an intensive search by the U.S. Coast Guard, Navy and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the plane's fuselage -- its passengers still strapped inside -- was found July 21 less than eight miles off the southwestern tip of Martha's Vineyard.

No flight plan had been filed for the journey, which originated from Essex County Airport in Caldwell, New Jersey.

CNN Correspondent Carl Rochelle and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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