Was JFK Jr. Qualified to Fly on the Day of His Death? Inside His Aviation Hobby

NEED TO KNOW

• John F. Kennedy Jr. developed a passion for aviation from the time his father, President John F. Kennedy, was in the White House and John Jr. was surrounded by planes and helicopters

• He earned his private pilot's license in 1998 but was still training for an instrument rating (the qualification to fly under poor meteorological conditions using the plane's instruments) at the time of his death in July 1999

• JFK Jr.'s family and friends had mixed feelings about his flying hobby, with some expressing concerns about his safety

John F. Kennedy Jr. had long been a fan of all things aviation before he tragically died while flying a plane .

The George founder was exposed to helicopters and planes from a young age, since his father, President John F. Kennedy , was in the White House.

After his mother, former first lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis , died in 1994 , he took flying more seriously and began taking lessons. By mid-1998, JFK Jr. had secured his pilot's licence at the Flight Safety Academy in Vero Beach, Fla.

He trained in a Cessna 182 Skylane, but he upgraded to the higher-tech 1995 Piper Saratoga II HP just months before his death. Although JFK Jr. was licensed, he was in the process of getting his instrument rating, which pilots earn through training to fly in poor meteorological conditions. Instrument flying occurs when a pilot relies on the various instruments available in the cockpit, rather than visual cues from outside the window.

JFK Jr. was flying with his wife, Carolyn Bessette , and her sister Lauren Bessette to his cousin Rory Kennedy 's wedding in Martha's Vineyard, when he crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on July 16, 1999. In the years since his death, his ability to fly the plane has been much discussed and debated.

Here's everything to know about John F. Kennedy Jr.'s passion for aviation and his path to getting his pilot's license.

Where did JFK Jr.'s passion for flying come from?

JFK Jr. was surrounded by planes, helicopters and all things aviation since birth. His father was elected president just 17 days before JFK Jr. was born, and then president for the next three years until his tragic assassination in November 1963 .

One of JFK Jr.'s childhood friends Gustavo Paredes shared with PEOPLE's Liz McNeil and JFK Jr.'s assistant, RoseMarie Terenzio, in their 2024 book, JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography , that his room was filled with plane models, helicopter toys and other aviation gadgets.

Paredes recalled going to airports with JFK Jr. and seeing him watch helicopters take off from the White House lawn.

"John loved helicopters, loved airplanes, anything military," Jackie's lead Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, said in the book. "It was the damn airplanes and the military uniforms and all that stuff — that seemed to be the only thing he liked. They put in a bouncy plane at Wexford [their weekend home in Virginia] for him so he could pretend to be a pilot. Mrs. Kennedy said that he would end up being a pilot someday."

As he got older, JFK Jr.'s fascination with aviation only developed. One of his friends from Brown University, Nick Chinlund, shared in the oral biography that JFK Jr. used to have a "pedal plane" that he could fly a couple hundred feet in the air.

"He loved flying. It was the freedom," Robbie Littell, another of JFK Jr.'s friends from Brown, shared in the book. "But most of all, it was getting away. Flying made him super happy. Free spirit, in control, doing something, you know ... a James Bondian endeavor."

When did JFK Jr. start taking flying lessons?

After JFK Jr. became fascinated with flying, his stepbrother, Alexander Onassis (who was the son of Jackie's second husband, Aristotle Onassis ), began taking him up in his helicopter. Alexander tragically died while instructing a potential pilot, who crashed the plane they were in at an Athens airport in 1973.

JFK Jr. started taking flying seriously in 1982 and logged 47 hours with six different instructors over the course of the next six years, according to Aviation Safety . However, he paused in September 1988 and didn't pick it back up for another decade.

In December 1997, JFK Jr. started training again at the Flight Safety Academy in Vero Beach. By the following April, he recorded an additional 53 hours and earned his private pilot's license.

"He was trying to get his pilot's license. He had taken lessons before, but other things came up and he paused before he completed his training," Terenzio shared in the oral biography.

What did his family and Bessette think of his aviation hobby?

Although JFK Jr. had long expressed an interest in flying, not everyone in his family and inner circle were onboard.

Jackie feared for her son's safety and reportedly asked a friend to do everything they could to prevent JFK Jr. from flying, according to Christopher Andersen's book The Day John Died .

However, there are mixed opinions on how Bessette, whom he married in September 1996 , felt about the hobby. Barry Stott, a pilot out of Martha's Vineyard at the time, told Terenzio and McNeil that Carolyn told him she was " always nervous about flying with John " and was "happier to fly" with someone else.

On the other hand, Terenzio recalled that Bessette "never seemed scared about flying with John."

Did JFK Jr. have his pilot's license?

JFK Jr. received his private pilot's license in April 1998, per Aviation Safety. He continued taking lessons and earned a complex airplane endorsement in May 1999. The NTSB later estimated that JFK Jr. had a total of about 310 hours of training — including 55 at night — but only 72 of those hours were without an instructor riding beside him.

Chris Benway, an instructor at Flight Safety Academy, gave JFK Jr. his primary training to obtain his private pilot's licence.

"He was an easy student," Benway said in McNeil and Terenzio's book. "He would probe to make sure he understood something. He was a very good pilot."

At the time of his death, JFK Jr. was training to obtain an instrument rating, and was only qualified to fly under visual flight rules.

What was the plane JFK Jr. flew?

After JFK Jr. obtained his private pilot's license, he bought the Cessna 182 — a small four-seat, single-engine plane. Benway encouraged JFK Jr. to stick to the vehicle, because it would continue to instill the basics without getting too complicated.

"In aviation, you have to stay conservative after you get your private pilot's license," Benway explained in the oral biography. "There's no room for error ... Flying is unforgiving."

Shortly after JFK Jr. got comfortable with the Cessna 182, he made it a point to get a meaningful tail number — 529, a nod to his dad's birthday.

"When he went to reserve that number to register it with the FAA, that one was taken," Terenzio recalled in the oral biography. "He ended up buying the number from the person who had it. The tail number on both of John's planes was N529JK."

In the spring of 1999, JFK Jr. bought the bigger, more technologically advanced, 1995 Piper Saratoga II HP. The pilot who sold him the plane, Munir Hussain, initially warned JFK Jr. that the plane was more complicated to operate and went significantly faster.

Unlike the Cessna, the Piper Saratoga was an instrument airplane, meaning it relied more on its internal technology and instruments than the pilot's visual acuity.

Was JFK Jr. qualified to fly the plane on the night of his death?

In March 1999, JFK Jr. passed his instrument airplane written exam and started training for the rating that April. Before his July 1999 death, JFK Jr. completed nearly half of the instrument airplane lessons.

His instrument instructor later said that JFK Jr. "grasped all of the basic skills needed to complete the course," but he still "had trouble managing multiple tasks while flying, which he felt was normal for the pilot's level of experience," per Aviation Safety.

Although JFK Jr. was in the midst of his instrument flight training, the day's conditions were very tricky .

Jeff Guzzetti, NTSB investigator, Office of Aviation Safety, shared in McNeil and Terenzio's book: "The weather conditions were technically visual flight rules (VFR), even though it was hazy — he had enough visibility in miles to make the flight legally, But as soon as he turned out to the black ocean with three to five miles of visibility in haze, it might as well be instrument flight rules (IFR) — meaning you must scan your instruments and that tells you whether your wings are level or if you are climbing or descending. However, he was not trained for instrument flying. He was trained to look outside to get his visual cues. There were no visual cues."

In addition, according to the NTSB report, on July 16, 1999, one of his flight instructors had offered to fly alongside JFK Jr., but he told him, "he wanted to do it alone."

JFK Jr. ultimately crashed around seven miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard in the Atlantic Ocean. The NTSB's full final report on the crash can be downloaded here .

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