Ann Freeman, the mother of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Lauren Bessette, had a mother’s intuition when it came to her daughters flying with John F. Kennedy Jr.
The late son of President John F. Kennedy, 38, was flying the plane with Carolyn, 33, and Lauren, 34, when it plunged into the Atlantic on July 16, 1999, killing them all.
The trio flew to Martha’s Vineyard to drop off Carolyn’s sister Lauren before continuing on to Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, to attend John’s cousin Rory’s wedding the next day.
However, Ann had reportedly told JFK Jr. never to fly with two of his daughters at the same time.
According to a new book, JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography, written by PEOPLE Editor-in-Chief Liz McNeil and RoseMarie Terenzio, Lauren and Carolyn’s mother, had issued the warning before the two boarded the small aircraft in 1999.
John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife Carolyn at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner in May 1999, two months before he died
“I was in a panic,” RoseMarie wrote of the grieving mother in the book.
‘She said something like, “I told him never to bring two of my girls at the same time.”
The author said Ann was “angry” after her daughters’ deaths.
“I cried. I felt panic, stupefaction. Disbelief,” she recalls.
Although it was 38-year-old JFK Jr., an inexperienced pilot, who was flying the small Piper Saratoga plane when it crashed, Carolyn is often blamed for the accident.
Following the “Kennedy tragedy,” it was reported that Carolyn’s vanity, superficiality, drug use, and general “moody” behavior were blamed for leading an inexperienced pilot (despite breaking many flight rules) to crash his plane into the ocean.
According to DailyMail.com columnist Maureen Callaghan’s book, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed, Carolyn told friends and family that she “didn’t trust” her husband’s flying abilities.
She wrote that Carolyn did not believe JFK Jr. — the late president’s only son — had the patience, diligence or attention span to be a good pilot.
He apparently didn’t take his training seriously, hadn’t logged enough hours to fly solo and regularly broke the rules by sneaking on solo flights when he was supposed to have an instructor with him.
Ann Freeman (right) photographed at the memorial service in Greenwich, Connecticut, for Lauren Bessette in 1999
JFK Jr. was flying the plane with Carolyn, 33, and Lauren, 34, when it tragically plunged into the Atlantic on July 16, 1999. Pictured: Carolyn and Lauren in New York City in 1998.
John F. Kennedy Jr. seated in the cockpit with his wife, Carolyn, in 1998 (he is pictured on a plane that same year)
Although JFK Jr., 38, an inexperienced pilot, was the one flying the small Piper Saratoga plane when it crashed, Carolyn is often blamed for the accident.
According to DailyMail.com columnist Maureen Callaghan’s book, Carolyn told friends and family that she “didn’t trust” her husband’s flying abilities. Pictured in 1996
On the night of the fatal crash, another light aircraft pilot told JFK Jr. that he was alarmed by the worsening visibility in the sky and suggested that he wait.
However, the anxious pilot replied: “No chance.”
A flight instructor offered to go up with him, but he declined. “I want to do it alone,” he said.
Before the scheduled takeoff from JFK Jr., four other pilots had to use their instruments to land in an increasingly thick fog. Other, far more experienced pilots took one look at the sky that night and said: No way.
At 8:38 p.m., JFK Jr. was cleared to take off in his Piper Saratoga, despite defying one of the most basic rules of aviation: he had not filed a flight plan. Once in the air, he defied another and cut off all communication with air traffic control.
Less than 20 minutes later, with Carolyn and Lauren buckled into their back seats, the small plane was on a collision course with a commercial American Airlines flight.
The pilots tried to reach the plane but could not hear anything clearly, so they sent an emergency message to ground control, which was also unable to establish contact with it.
Not knowing where the unsuspecting pilot of this small propeller plane was headed, American Airlines pilots had to deviate from their flight path to avoid a fatal mid-air collision.
JFK Jr. checking his plane in October 1998 at Caldwell Airport in New Jersey
JFK Jr.’s plane wreckage recovered from water
A Coast Guard helicopter pulls a rescue swimmer from the water during a search for the wreckage of JFK Jr.’s plane in 1999.
JFK Jr. continued to climb to 5,500 feet. Despite fog and worsening visibility, he did not engage the autopilot or approach the illuminated shoreline.
Instead, he turned right and headed out into the Atlantic, and before he knew it, the sea and sky had become one uniform black mass and he couldn’t tell up from down.
The plane entered a graveyard spiral, falling at 900 feet per minute, 200 miles per hour, nose first into the ocean.
Aviation expert Jeff Guzzetti, who was part of the team that examined the wreckage, said PEOPLE that this may have played a role in Kennedy losing control of the plane as he was forced to rely solely on internal monitors and controls as he flew through hazy night skies.
“He had been trained to look out and pick up on visual cues,” she said. “There were no visual cues.”
Following the fatal accident, a National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that John was solely responsible for this entirely preventable tragedy.
In 2001, Carolyn and Lauren’s mother, Ann, reportedly received millions in a wrongful death settlement against their estate.
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