Synchronicities
Kennedys on the Edge
My Personal JFK Jr Story
The New John
The Crash
Diana
Titanic and other Air/Sea Disasters
UFOs and Conspiracy Theories
The death of JFK2 has as many similarities to the death of Princess Diana or the sinking of the Titanic as it does to the assassination of John's father, President Kennedy in November 1963. It also has synchronistic elements to the moon landing in July 1969 and "Chappaquidick" (a section of Martha's Vineyard; actually a separate island), and the crash of TWA Flight 800 on nearly the same day three years earlier.
The location of the presumed crash site, in the Atlantic Ocean a few miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard, is a graveyard of ships from colonial pirating days (how do you think "Buzzard's Bay" got it's name?). Falmouth was a huge whaling port in the 18th and 19th centuries- it was one of the largest centers of mercantile business in the United States for over 100 years.
Chappaquidick is on the southeast corner of the island (lower right),
while "Gay Head" is the southwest (lower left) appendage visible in the
map.
It was the same weekend in 1969 when some members of the Kennedy family gathered to watch the moon landing on television, the most important event in human history to date. After midnight, Ted Kennedy offered to drive Mary Jo Kopechne home. The fourth son of Joe Kennedy Sr, and the only remaining living brother, it was presumed he would also run for president someday. Until that night when he drove off the bridge, in utter darkness, and failed to act decisively to save Mary Jo's life. Another crash into water, only miles from the Kennedy family compound.
Thirty years later, the Space Shuttle was scheduled for a night launch on the anniversary of the lunar landing (first launch attempt scrubbed due to a safety check; second launch attempt delayed by thunderstorms). At the time of mankind's greatest achievements, inspired and set into motion by President Kennedy, his siblings and progeny seem fated to encounter the low ebb of the karmic cycle. Some old timers say that back during the Prohibition, someone put a curse on Joseph Kennedy Sr's offspring.
John and I went to the same high school, but were never in any classes together except for "Driver's Ed." If you remember from my "Diana" pages, I am also one of those 1960 babies who turn 40 at the millennium... if I make it that far!? So many of the 'good ones' my age or even younger are already GONE! Other members of John's class have had some close calls recently also. (Look for link to "my accident" on Gus's page).
We also worked on some school plays together. I was one of those "stage crew" junkies who was always operating the lights or sound... "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." John was a terrific actor and could have been really big, but I think his mother wanted to shelter him from the fast paced Hollywood lifestyle that he would have inevitably become involved with if he had been allowed to choose acting as his profession.
Anyway, in Driver's Ed, which is essentially the "ground school" for operating the first significant vehicle in your life with which you have "life and death" responsibility, John would usually show up late, sit in the back row with his girlfriend (Meg) and either fool around or usually fall asleep. The instructor from the local Lawrence (MA) driving school was on a power trip I think- knowing who he had in his class, when John would fall asleep, he would throw an eraser at his head to wake him up. And use that as an excuse to launch into a tirade on how important it was to take this stuff seriously and not to fall asleep at the wheel.
There is another personal synchronicity here. The same year I was learning to drive a car, I would also ride my 10-speed bike down Rte 28 to Lawrence Municipal Airport to take introductory flying lessons in a Cessna. I only logged a few hours with an instructor, and I did not have the money to afford the ground school and the full quota of instructor-led flying hours. But I can relate to John's lifelong dream of wanting to get a pilot's license and own his own plane. It was my dream too, although I never had the means to fulfill it. When I joined the US Air Force in the 1980s I thought about taking lessons on base also, but even with a discount it was out of my reach. Now that I have children of my own, I think I would decide that the risks do not outweigh the benefits. Perhaps that is cowardly, or maybe just conservative? People do not succeed in life without taking acceptable risks.
In subsequent years, I would run into John on the streets of Boston
or New York, and say a casual "Hi!" or "How's it going?" We were never
buddies or anything, since we were in different dorms on the opposite end
of the prep school campus. I'm sure some of our high school classmates
would have a lot more relevant things to say than my little snippet. I
heard that one of John's english instructors was on CNN talking about how
he was not an exceptional student- who cares? It seems like the media is
scouring up anyone with anything to say and get on the air for their fifteen
minutes of fame.
I have to give John credit for reinventing himself after his mother's
death. John was attracted to acting but was constrained by the expectations
of a political family. He was actually a very good actor in student
plays at Andover and Brown, but I think his mother wanted to protect him
from getting too involved in the fast paced Hollywood lifestyle.
With "George," he was able to exist at the periphery of both worlds, while
also paying homage to his mother's interest in journalism. It was
a brilliant synthesis of the cultural forces at work in his life and in
the world at large.
The Washington Post web page about John's life asks "Has anyone else been under such unrelenting scrutiny almost from birth? For all his mother Jacqueline's efforts to shield him, John F. Kennedy, Jr. has lived his life in the public eye, a target of curiosity and speculation. It has been a life of much promise, much pleasure and—as always with the Kennedys—much pain. "
Well, yes, actually there is another living person who has also been scrutinized from birth, and it's not difficult to figure out the connection, when even the most innocuous commentators refer to the Kennedys as "America's Royalty" or whatever. In this case, the "paparazzi" did not hound John to the moment of his death, but the constant sensitivity to journalistic excesses probably influenced some of the decision making process to take risks other people might decide were unacceptable.
This Washington Post article sums it up well: "On Friday night, Kennedy took another risk, flying into a moonless haze – even though he was a novice pilot, even though his Piper Saratoga was a fairly intricate plane, even though he had a broken foot that made it harder to operate the pedals, even though his wife and other relatives had pressured him to drop his aviation hobby. Now it seems clear that his last risk killed him, along with his wife and sister-in-law, reigniting a familiar post-tragedy debate about the Kennedy family penchant for danger. "
The most striking similarity with Diana is in the media coverage of the crash. The media is on another "feeding frenzy" reporting snippets of information and repeating them ad nauseum until eventually they have to be retracted. Not all media are as bad as others- (MS)NBC gets my vote as the best; ABC and CNN as the worst.
Newsmax.com: compares the
Diana coverage to the JFK coverage in their
Inside
Cover.
(look for article "Mike Wallace's Scoop.")
LA Times: "Coverage a Senseless
Tragedy
in itself."
MSNBC is reporting that on the night of the crash, a person working
at the Martha's Vineyard airport called the FAA to put out a search for
the plane. This reminds me of the reports of how a passing cyclist spotted
the crash of Diana's car and called French police who thought it was a
hoax. This case is different however, because there was nothing the FAA
could have done at this point. In the middle of the night, if a search
had been initiated any sooner, would it have made any difference? Especially
if the plane crashed at high speed as the latest radar logs seem to indicate?
Boston
Globe version
USA Today
version of the story.
Titanic: The Titanic sank in icy waters much further north, in April 1912. But it was also a moonless night, and dead calm, so that the men on watch for icebergs had no visual clues that would warn them of the iceberg with enough time to react appropriately. Key factors were: (A) an error of judgment by Captain Smith to order full steam ahead to make headlines by arriving in New York a day early at the orders of White Star Chairman Ismay; (B) an error by the helmsman ordering full reverse when virtually on top of the berg which caused a loss of rudder control and inability to steer. Etcetera...
If any one of these things had not happened, the ship might not have sunk! But the part that reminded me most of the movie version of Titanic is how they used the robotic underwater camera to search the ocean floor for the wreckage.
In John's case, just read the press reports, if you haven't already heard them over and over ad nauseum on all the major networks. His family and friends had tried to talk him out of flying. He had only recently obtained his pilots license, and did not have much experience flying at night or using "instrument flight rules." Most of the hours he had logged were in a different plane than the one he was flying. He took off at sunset on a hot muggy night to fly over the ocean. He was in a hurry to make it to his cousin's wedding so he may not have given appropriate weight to all the factors, including safety equipment. Hot air is less buoyant, and the crescent moon set early, leaving a dark murky hazy night. He arrived over Martha's Vineyard after the airport tower had closed, so he had nobody to radio for instructions. The island was socked in by haze, so visual landmarks normally available were obscured. Perhaps his altimeter was malfunctioning- who knows?
Of all the talking heads on the networks this weekend, only Bob Arnot of NBC had any real clue what might have happened. Coincidentally, he was also piloting his own private plane to Nantucket that same night. The traffic out of NYC to the Cape was heavy. But out over open water, it was hard to make out the islands, and he flew past Nantucket on the first run, and had to turn around and try again. Arnot is mentioned in this MSNBC article: Dead Man's Spiral
In the days since the crash, family and friends are asking "What If?" What if he hadn't injured his ankle? What if he had taken off one hour earlier? John waited to pick up his sister in law at her investment banking firm where she was kept late by a meeting; then when they reached the Lincoln tunnel to get to the airport in New Jersey, it was clogged with Friday night traffic (of course!). So they didn't reach the airport until 8:00 PM. What if they had made it out of Manhattan earlier?
July 20, 1999: Perhaps John became disoriented, entering a "twilight zone" or "purgatory" during which he knew he had lost contact with reality and was not going to recover. Out over the inky black ocean, with no horizon or lights visible, John had a moment of mental lapse, during which he realized that he no longer knew where he was or how far he was from shore. He decided to lose altitude, hoping that if he flew below the haze he could hear the surf or have a better chance of locating some beacon (the "Lucky Lindy" maneuver used on the trans-Atlantic flight). With no discernible landmarks, it would be virtually impossible to visually determine if the plane were at 1000 feet or 100 feet. The excessive humiture could have been messing with the altimeter function, making it seem like they were higher than they really were. He dropped rapidly, thinking the "deck" was a few hundred feet further down than it really was.
July 22, 1999: Or more likely, now that the wreckage has been found and the radar logs analyzed more thoroughly, he lost his sense of direction, and went into a gradual turn that was imperceptible because of the G-forces on the plane and the lack of a discernible horizon. In a new plane, different than the one in which he had logged most of his previous flying hours, it would take him longer to scan all the instrument readouts than a more experienced pilot in that same model of aircraft. When he finally noticed that his direction was off- he was no longer on his vector for the airport-he initiated a sharper turn, but had trouble anticipating where the "level" point was. He banked the aircraft excessively, overcorrecting for pitch, so that in reality his wing was pointing down and he was in a "sideways stall" losing altitude without realizing it. The injured ankle may have been a factor is his ability to maintain the attitude of the aircraft.
The bottom line is... almost all accidents can be traced back to inexperience. The pilot finds himself in new conditions under which he has not trained sufficiently and had not anticipated. Even wthout panic, in a totally new situation, your first attempt to recover might not be successful, and you have to try an alternate strategy. In an aircraft, under ideal conditions, there is very little margin for error. When conditions are degraded, you only get once chance.
Why are so many "good" people vanishing or having their lives taken in the final year of the second millennium? Some people believe that the "elect" are to be taken up into the rapture before the tribulation which will begin during the total solar eclipse on August 11, 1999.
TWA Flight #800: One of the "not yet unproven" theories about TWA flight #800, exactly three years before off the shore of Long Island, is that it collided with a UFO. A friend jokingly suggested a "Long Island Triangle" to rival the "Bermuda Triangle" but maybe that's no joke?! The images of Coast Guard ships searching the "debris field" at the bottom of the ocean are eerily reminiscent of the search exactly three years ago in the waters just off Moriches Inlet only a few dozen miles to the southwest. July 17 is a date that will live in infamy! [From Newsday's Flight 800 Page ].
I don't
make this stuff up- I just report it!
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Have
you heard? Millennium 1999 A.D.