An epic five-day tangle of events that began with a tragic airplane crash off the Vineyard last weekend came to a swift end yesterday when the three victims of the crash — whose names are now known around the world — were buried at sea near the site where they died.
The ashes of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, were scattered over the Atlantic Ocean yesterday morning, seven and a half miles off the western end of the Vineyard. Members of both the Kennedy and Bessette families, including Sen. Edward Kennedy and Caroline Schlossberg Kennedy, traveled to the site on board the USS Briscoe, a Navy destroyer.
The destroyer steamed north to Woods Hole on Wednesday this week from a training exercise in Virginia, after both families had requested and received permission for Navy assistance for a mariner’s funeral.
It is now known that Mr. Kennedy, who owned property in Aquinnah, flew his small airplane into the sea when he was headed to the Vineyard last Friday night with his wife and sister in law on board. The crash occurred when the plane was entering its final approach to the Island.
Yesterday morning, crowds of mourners and onlookers lined shores and rooftops, both in Woods Hole and on the western tip of the Vineyard, to watch the huge Navy destroyer steam out for the sad final chapter of the tragedy.
Two Roman Catholic Navy chaplains and a civilian Roman Catholic priest officiated at the private ceremony at sea.
At Moshup Beach in Aquinnah, someone planted a driftwood cross into a pile of stones worn smooth by the sea. The cross was lashed together with Island grapevines, their leaves curling under the hot July sun. The salt-blasted driftwood was carved with the names John-John, Carolyn and Lauren.
Using sophisticated side-scan sonar equipment, Navy divers and salvage crews who had worked around the clock since Saturday located the twisted wreckage of the small airplane late Tuesday night in 116 feet of water west-southwest of the Vineyard, near Noman’s Land. The bodies of the three victims were found in and under the wreckage, according to official reports.
The bodies were brought up on Wednesday afternoon and transported to the Barnstable County hospital in Bourne, which is no longer in use as a hospital. The plane wreckage, which includes a large section of the fuselage, was also brought out of the water on Wednesday.
“Today we were able to bring closure to two families,” declared Rear Adm. Richard Larrabee in a press briefing on Wednesday night at the unified command center that had been set up at Otis Air Force Base in Bourne. It was the final press briefing, and spokesmen for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said no more statements would be made until after family memorial services are completed. The families have planned memorial services today in New York city and in Greenwich, Conn.
An investigation into the plane crash is under way by the NTSB. The investigation is not expected to be completed for six to nine months.
In a formal statement issued yesterday morning, Cape and Islands district attorney Philip A. Rollins reported that chief medical examiners had found that all three victims died from multiple traumatic injuries as a result of the plane crash. The deaths were instantaneous, the report said.
The victims were cremated, and their ashes were immediately transported back to the place where they had been taken from the sea less than 18 hours earlier.
On the Vineyard, which has been the staging area over the last six days for what is believed to be the largest search and recovery operation in the history of the Island, there were many signs of closure. The global media horde that had descended on the Island over the weekend to cover the story swarmed into Woods Hole on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning to cover the events there, including a grim scene when the three bodies were brought ashore in ship caskets after the recovery exercise was completed.
The Dukes County Search and Rescue team, which had been involved in a massive five-day search all along the south shore — ended its work on Wednesday.
“We have shut down,” said Bill Searle, the team leader for the search and rescue team. Mr. Searle is also a sergeant with the Massachusetts Environmental Police, but all of his remarks to the Gazette this week were issued in his capacity as team leader for the all-volunteer, specially trained search and rescue team. Mr. Searle praised the work of the team, and of all the people of the Vineyard who participated in the recovery effort with a characteristically compassionate Island spirit.
“I can’t say enough good things about the public and how they have cooperated,” Mr. Searle said. “It is truly remarkable how the Vineyard has come together on this.”
The shore search by Mr. Searle and his team of some 35 volunteers covered an area stretching from the Menemsha Bight on the Aquinnah side in an easterly direction all the way along the south shore to Chappaquiddick, and around the shore of Chappaquiddick to the Dike Bridge. Debris from the plane wreck was recovered along the shore from the bowl under the Gay Head Light to Wasque Point on Chappaquiddick. The landing gear to the plane was recovered by the Edgartown police on Wednesday near the Edgartown Great Pond. Trained Vineyard volunteers also searched the entire perimeter of Noman’s Land on foot.
Mr. Kennedy, his wife and sister in law left from Essex County Airport in Fairfield, N.J., at about 8:45 p.m. last Friday aboard his single-engine Piper Saratoga HP. Mr. Kennedy was considered a novice pilot and had purchased the plane in April.
Throughout the week the Federal Aviation Administration has released new information about the plane’s altitude at the time of the last radar contact, about 17 miles south-southwest of the Vineyard airport. FAA officials now believe that the plane was in fact diving at an extremely rapid rate, and there is also evidence that the plane had turned away from the Vineyard airport, suggesting that the pilot could have been disoriented.
Although the search and rescue team has ended its work, Mr. Searle issued a continued reminder to the public that any debris from the plane that is found on the beach should be turned over to the state police. “That piece of something that goes into someone’s pocket as a souvenir could be the piece which solves the investigation into this crash,” he said.
This article appears in July 23, 1999.