Everything we know about the night JFK Jr and Carolyn died as new series revisiting their romance comes to an end

When John F Kennedy Jr, his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her sister Lauren died in a plane crash off the famed Martha's Vineyard on July 16, 1999, the world was plunged into mourning.

Kennedy Jr, 38, the son of former US president John F Kennedy, was behind the controls of the aircraft when it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing everyone on board.

A quarter of a century on, interest in the tragedy has been reignited after a new series entitled Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette began streaming in Australia.

The final episode, which will detail the tragedy, is now airing.

Watch the video above.

The show is part of a Love Story biographical romance anthology series produced by Ryan Murphy.

It stars Paul Anthony Kelly as JFK Jr, Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Naomi Watts as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

The series tracks the romance between the pair, who became one of the most iconic celebrity couples of the '90s, from their first meeting to their untimely death.

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The birth of an 'It' couple

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr, also known as JFK Jr, was born on November 25, 1960, in Washington DC to John F Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy.

His father had been elected president of the United States three weeks earlier and was sworn in two months after his son's birth.

The family, which included JFK Jr's older sister Caroline, lived in the White House until the president was assassinated on November 22, 1963 – three days before his son turned three.

JFK Jr went on to become one of the most eligible bachelors in the world, dating Brooke Shields, Cindy Crawford, Sarah Jessica Parker and Daryl Hannah before he met Calvin Klein employee Carolyn Bessette in 1992.

They secretly married on September 21, 1996, in a tiny church in the US state of Georgia.

Media attention put a strain on their marriage and there were reports they were living apart and even planning to divorce by July 1999.

Whatever the case, on July 16, 1999, Carolyn accompanied her husband to his cousin's wedding in Massachusetts the next day.

It was decided Carolyn's older sister Lauren would travel with them for part of the trip.

The doomed plane trip

JFK Jr had wanted to be a pilot ever since he was a child and attained his private pilot's licence in April 1998 – just 15 months before his death.

Three months before the crash, he had replaced his Cessna with a more powerful single engine Piper Saratoga aircraft.

By the night in question, JFK Jr had logged about 310 hours of flight time and was licensed to fly planes with retractable landing gear, a controllable pitch propeller and movable/adjustable flaps.

However, he was not qualified to use a plane's cockpit instruments to navigate the plane, instead relying on 'visuals' or what he could see.

According to historian John Hankey, as quoted in In Touch Weekly, "He was working on getting his instrument licence and he had passed the written exam and he had passed the performance exam, and all he had to do in order to qualify for his licence was to... log [flying] hours under the supervision of a flight instructor".

It was later revealed JFK Jr never planned to make the trip at night.

He had wanted to depart at 6pm but Lauren, with whom JFK Jr shared a car to the airport, had been delayed at work.

The plane took off almost 30 minutes after sunset.

In Touch Weekly reports JFK Jr viewed a weather forecast at 6.30pm that indicated visibility along the flight path was good.

But by the time the plane took off at 8.38pm, conditions had deteriorated, with hazy skies and reduced visibility.

Lost at sea

The Piper Saratoga's flight path showed its intended route was along the Atlantic Ocean coastline of the US state of Connecticut then across Rhode Island Sound to Martha's Vineyard Airport.

There, it was to land and drop off Lauren Bessette before taking off again and continuing to Barnstable Municipal Airport in Cape Cod.

JFK Jr was at the controls while his wife, 33, and sister-in-law, 34, were seated in the second row, facing away from the pilot.

The trio never made it to their first destination, with the plane crashing almost nose-first into the Atlantic Ocean at about 9.41pm.

The first signs to the outside world that something was amiss came at 10.05pm when a clerical duties summer intern contacted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) office in Connecticut to advise the plane had not arrived.

But it was not until 2.15am the following morning that the Kennedy family reported to the Cape Cod Coast Guard that the plane had not made it to its intended destination.

The US Coast Guard began a search and rescue operation at 4am and news broke that the plane was missing.

America woke to the news with headlines screaming one word: "Lost."

One of Kennedy's cousin, Anthony Radziwill, fronted the press, saying the family was hopeful they would be found alive.

But on July 19, sonar picked up plane wreckage.

The fuselage was identified the following evening before navy divers found wreckage strewn over a large area 37 metres under the surface. It was just 12km from its intended landing site.

The US Coast Guard admiral later reported all three bodies were found near the fuselage, still strapped into their seats.

Their remains were brought to shore, where autopsies found they had all died on impact.

The National Transportation Safety Board determined the probable cause of the accident was pilot failure to maintain control of the plane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of "spatial disorientation".

Other factors were haze and the dark night.

'I don't think they knew what was happening'

A July 2024 report in People quoted former National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jeff Guzzetti, who was among the team at the Office of Aviation Safety that examined the wreckage.

He told People that once JFK Jr turned away from the coastline to head to Martha's Vineyard, he lost visibility.

"As soon as he turned out to the black ocean with three to five miles of visibility in haze, it might as well be instrument flight rules (IFR)," he said.

"[This means] you must scan your instruments and that tells you whether your wings are level or if you are climbing or descending.

"He was trained to look outside to get his visual cues [but] there were no visual cues."

As he began his descent, investigators found his flight path became irregular, which indicated he was experiencing "spatial disorientation" – a person's inability to determine their true position, motion and altitude relative to the earth or his surroundings.

"His flight path into the water is consistent with what is known as a graveyard spiral," Guzzetti said.

"The plane makes a spiral nose down... kind of like going down a drain. The plane went into one final turn and it stayed in that turn pretty much all the way down to the ocean," he said.

Guzzetti said it was unlikely his passengers knew the plane was about to crash.

"In my personal opinion, I don't think the passengers knew what was happening to them," he said.

"They might have felt a little G-force pushing them down in their seats.

"You would've heard the rush of air over the fuselage accelerate or get louder, during the final fatal plunge... and then they hit the surface of the water and it's over.

"I would expect that the pilot would be very confused and perhaps a little frightened because the instruments may have not been matching up with how he was feeling."

He added that the final "impact forces were tremendous".

Tragedy that shocked the world

The news of JFK Jr, Carolyn and Lauren's deaths shocked the world.

All three were cremated before a memorial service was held in New York on July 23. Their ashes were then scattered off the Massachusetts coastline during a ceremony held aboard the US Navy destroyer USS Briscoe.

A number of books have been written about the life of JFK Jr. JFK Jr: An Intimate Oral Biography, was released in 2024 and was written by his assistant and close friend RoseMarie Terenzio and Liz McNeil.

In it, Terenzio described her actions after learning the plane was missing.

She said she called the airport in Caldwell, New Jersey, from where it had departed and also spoke with Ann Freeman, the mother of Carolyn, Lauren and Lauren's twin sister, Lisa.

"She was panic-stricken," Terenzio wrote in the book.

"She said something like, 'I told him never to take two of my girls up at the same time'. She was angry. Crying. It was panic, shock. Disbelief."

Freeman later sued JFK Jr's estate for wrongful death, eventually receiving a settlement of $22 million.

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