Online Encyclopedia
John F. Kennedy, Jr.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., often referred to as JFK Jr. or John-John (November 25, 1960–July 16, 1999) was an American lawyer, journalist, publisher, and sex symbol. He was the son of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.
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Education
John F. Kennedy, Jr. graduated from Brown University in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in history. At Brown, Kennedy was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity (though the chapter at the time was officially inactive). In 1989, he earned a law degree from New York University Law School.
He spoke at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. He was an assistant district attorney for New York, New York from 1989 to 1993. In 1995, he founded George, a glossy politics-as-lifestyle monthly which ceased publication in 2001. From the late 1980s until his death in July 1999, Kennedy was a much-photographed and often-seen personality in Manhattan.
He married Carolyn Bessette in 1996.
Demise
On July 16, 1999, Kennedy was killed, along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, when the aircraft he was piloting, a Piper Saratoga, crashed in the sea en route from Essex County Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey, to Martha's Vineyard, where his family has a vacation house. The next day they were to attend the wedding of Rory Kennedy, which was subsequently delayed.
Kennedy had 310 hours of flight experience, including 55 hours of night flying experience, and 36 hours on the high-performance Piper Saratoga, and had completed about half of an instrument training course. The National Transportation Safety Board investigation found no evidence of mechanical malfunction in airframe, systems, avionics, or engine, and determined that the probable cause was "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 report noted that spatial disorientation as a result of continued VFR flight into adverse weather conditions is a regular cause of fatal aircraft accidents.