JFK Jr.'s Body Recovery Nearly Abandoned Before Crucial Discovery

The recovery of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s body following his fatal plane crash in 1999 was nearly called off by search crews who were close to abandoning the operation before a critical sonar discovery was made. Coast Guard Capt. W. Russell 'Russ' Webster, who led the extensive maritime search, shared that teams were preparing to cease efforts after four days without finding any sign of Kennedy, his wife Carolyn Bessette, or her sister Lauren.

Kennedy, piloting a small aircraft, disappeared on the night of July 16, 1999, when the plane crashed off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. The subsequent search effort became one of the largest maritime rescue operations ever conducted for private citizens in U.S. history.

Webster told The New York Post that high-tech sonar scanners detected a signal in the deep ocean, leading to the discovery of Kennedy's body 116 feet below the surface. His remains were found approximately seven miles from the coastline, about 10 feet from the main wreckage. The bodies of Carolyn and Lauren Bessette were found inside the wreckage, still strapped into their seats.

"They might have never found him had another day gone by," said Theresa Mitchell Webster, the rescue leader's wife and a historian, in a statement related to their upcoming book, 'The Last Flight: The Untold Story of the Search for JFK Jr. and the Race Against the Atlantic.' She noted that the eventual retrieval of the bodies took an additional day even after they were located.

Webster explained that the search was complicated by Kennedy's operation under visual flight rules, which meant the Federal Aviation Administration was not tracking his flight. Kennedy was navigating by geographic references and had not completed his instrument training. A storm that moved over Martha's Vineyard before his final flight may have contributed to the crash.

One of Kennedy's instructors had reportedly warned him that he was not ready to fly, and Webster suggested that his inexperience with flight instruments likely led him to lose his sense of the horizon before impacting the ocean at high speed. The National Transportation Safety Board investigation indicated the plane fell at a rate of 4,700 feet per minute, a force Webster likened to hitting cement due to the speed and altitude of the impact.

Theresa Mitchell Webster also described the condition of Carolyn and Lauren Bessette's bodies, noting they were so mangled by the wreckage that they were not facially recognizable and had to be identified by their hair colors. Her book aims to detail the search and recovery efforts.