The minute she said yes, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy regretted it.
‘I don’t trust him,’ she’d say to family members, friends — even to a waitress at her favorite restaurant.
She had finally agreed to fly with her husband, the gorgeous and adored John F. Kennedy Jr., in the small plane he was still learning to pilot, to a family wedding on Cape Cod in July 1999.
Her presence was a gift, helping him to keep up appearances while their marriage was at its most tenuous. But it went against her gut instinct.
She didn’t think JFK Jr., the only son of the late president, had the patience, diligence or attention span to be a good pilot. He wasn’t taking his training seriously. He hadn’t banked nearly enough hours in the air to fly alone, yet he regularly broke the rules, sneaking in solo flights when he was supposed to have an instructor with him.
Not one person admonished him or threatened to take away his training certificate. No, it was just John being a Kennedy, a rogue like his much-adored father.
Six weeks before, he’d needed surgery after crash-landing a contraption called ‘the flying lawnmower’, breaking his ankle.
His cast had come off just the day before he planned to take to the air with Carolyn and her sister Lauren. He needed a cane and faced months of physiotherapy, but John swore his doctor had cleared him to fly.
Not likely. But John was so confident. Overconfident, as usual.
Hellbound and Down 