am looking for a commputer periodical (web address). I was just talking to my friend about teh 2008 presidential race. I said,,'I wonder why John kennedy Jr. isn't in the 'running',,",,,my friend said,,"he died in a plane crash, about a yr ago". I was very upset,,now I'm CONVINCED,,,about what may have happened to Paul Wellstone. God bless this mess of a nation!! .
2006-07-08 00:01:42 · 2 answers · asked by E S 3 in Politics & Government ➔ Law & Ethics
On July 16, 1999, Kennedy died aged 38, along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, when the aircraft he was piloting, N9253N, a Piper Saratoga II HP, crashed on a hazy night into the Atlantic Ocean en-route from Essex County Airport in West Caldwell, New Jersey, to Martha's Vineyard, where the Kennedy family has a vacation house. Kennedy, his wife, and his sister-in-law were travelling to attend the wedding of cousin Rory Kennedy which was subsequently delayed as a result of the accident.
Kennedy was a relatively inexperienced pilot, with 310 hours of flight experience, including 55 hours of night-flying and 36 hours in the high-performance Piper Saratoga. He had completed about half of an instrument training course but was not rated for flying in low visibility conditions. The National Transportation Safety Board investigation [2] 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. According to literature found in most FAA approved flight training books, a pilot's inability to see the horizon leads to spatial disorientation. The inner ear will typically give the pilot the impression that the plane is turning when it is not turning. It takes many hours of instrument training for a pilot to be able to fly in IFR conditions; conditions that most likely existed when Kennedy was flying on his route to Martha's Vineyard. Over the water at night there are few lights and the lights that existed were most likely obscured by the haze.
Kyle Bailey, a pilot believed to have been the last person to see Kennedy alive at Essex County Airport, subsequently stated that he had cancelled his own intended journey to Martha's Vineyard because the weather on the route was "a little too hazy." It also emerged that while Kennedy had made the journey from Essex County Airport to the Vineyard several times before, he had never made it alone and at night — meaning factors which can make a flight challenging, especially for a non-instrument-rated pilot. Kennedy's flight instructor (CFI) stated that he offered to fly with Kennedy on the fatal journey but Kennedy replied that, "I want to do it alone." The instructor also stated that he was uncomfortable with Kennedy making a flight alone in a high-performance aircraft at night, over open water and into haze.
During the memorial service on July 23, Kennedy's uncle, Massachusetts Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, said that, "We dared to think . . . that this John Kennedy would live to comb grey hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But, like his father, he had every gift but length of years." [3] And of his nephew's marriage, he invoked what had been said of his brother's presidency: both lasted 1,000 days. U.S. President Bill Clinton attended the service, and ordered that the flag at the White House be lowered to half-mast in honor of John F. Kennedy, Jr.
A large undisclosed payment was made to the Bessette family from the Kennedy family [4]. It is reported that this payment was made to avoid a possible highly media-covered lawsuit, since the accident was caused by human error.
Just as his father's death is mired in conspiracy theory controversy, the story of John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s death has also drawn the attention of conspiracy theorists.
2006-07-08 00:05:37 · answer #1 · answered by michelin_man 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Although John John and Senator Wellstone both died in airplane accidents, that is about the end of the similarities. Paul Wellstone's crash was different in almost every way - different size and type of plane, different weather conditions, professional pilots and more. There is no conspiracy and no connection:
On October 25, 2002, Wellstone was killed, along with seven others, in a plane crash in northern Minnesota, at approximately 10:22 a.m. He was 58. The other victims were his wife, Sheila, one of his three children, Marcia, the two pilots, and campaign staffers Will McLaughlin, Tom Lapic, and Mary McEvoy. The plane was en route to Eveleth where Wellstone was to attend the funeral of Martin Rukavina, a steelworker whose son Tom Rukavina serves in the Minnesota House of Representatives. Wellstone decided to go to the funeral instead of a rally and fundraiser in Minneapolis attended by Mondale and fellow Senator Ted Kennedy. He was to debate Norm Coleman in Duluth, MN that night.
The Beechcraft King Air A100 plane crashed in dense forest about two miles from the Eveleth airport while operating under instrument flight rules as required for weather conditions of freezing rain and snow. Investigators were dismayed to learn that the charter plane Wellstone was traveling in had no flight data recorders. Both pilots tested negative for drug or alcohol use. Icing was considered and rejected as a significant factor in the crash.
The NTSB later determined that the likely cause of the accident was the failure of both the pilot and copilot to maintain a safe minimum airspeed, leading to a stall from which they could not recover. Fatigue could have affected this, as the day before the crash the pilot had flown an unexpected trip from 3 - 9:30 am and then worked a nursing shift from 6 - 10 pm. Wellstone's flight departed St. Paul at about 9:37 the following morning. However, both pilots would have had to fail in their task of monitoring the airplane's instrumentation and in-flight behavior which would have given ample warning of an impending stall. Therefore, fatigue is likely not the only factor. Many people have disputed the explanation of the crash [3], and suggest tampering or electronic-jamming equipment as more plausible factors.
Michael L. Guess, the First Officer, was characterized in the NTSB report as being "below average" in proficiency.[4] Significant discrepancies were also found in pilot Richard Conry's flight logs in the course of the post-accident investigation. [5] He also had a well-known tendency to allow copilots to take over all functions of the aircraft as if they were the sole pilot during flights. After the crash three copilots told of occasions in which they had to take control of the aircraft away from Conry, after one of those incidents only three days before the crash the copilot urged Conry to retire [6]. A few months before the crash he told another pilot Timothy M. Cooney, a childhood friend, he had difficulty piloting and landing King Airs [7]. The copilot was cited by coworkers as having to be consistently reminded to keep his hand on the throttle and maintain airspeed during approaches [8]. He had been fired from two previous piloting jobs for incompetence.
The final two radar readings detected the airplane traveling at or just below its predicted stall speed given conditions at the time of the accident [9].
2006-07-08 08:30:00 · answer #2 · answered by Loss Leader 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋