I always felt he received subpar pilot training or was just plain stupid. The airplane he was flying almost certainly had a decent autopilot. Given the poor visual conditions, he could have made his entire descent on autopilot without incident. You don't need an instrument license to turn on the autopilot.
Flying at night over water in hazy conditions is really IFR. If you try to fly by visual references you can easily fly right into the ground or water. I suspect he flew there on autopilot and started his decent into the airport flying the aircraft visually and became disoriented.
“I always felt he received subpar pilot training or was just plain stupid”
The New York Post ran a 2 page story on this today and gave alot of detail I hadn’t read before.
Right now I’m siding with “just plain stupid”
Here are some of the main points I remember....
JFK Jr. was recovering from a broken ankle. He was taking vicodin for the pain and was still using a crutch.
His doctor told him not to fly until he was no longer using a crutch.
The guy hobbled to the airport on a crutch anyway.
Another pilot ran into him at the airport and warned him weather conditions were changing and there may be haze to worry about. This guy also noticed JFK Jr. carrying a bottle of wine -the seal had been broken and it was corked up. So it is possible there were a few swigs from the wine bottle combined with the vicodin - combined with the ritalin he took for ADD, combined with the thyroid prescription he took.
JFK Jr. wouldn’t listen to warnings about weather. He was running late.
He took off without calling and checking on the latest weather conditions. If he had, he would have learned of worsening conditions affecting visibility.
He wasn’t able to pass the test that gave him the license to fly with instruments- visiblity was necessary for him to fly.
He took off and climbed to an altitude and course that set him on a collision course with an American Airlines flight carrying over 100 people. The air traffic controllers couldn’t reach him by radio - he must have switched it off.
They had to have the AA flight change course to avoid crashing.
The bonehead almost managed to kill over 100 people that night!
So...he flew on into worsening conditions and didn’t know how to fly out of it...lost his bearings and didn’t know what was up and what was down.
He hit the water going approx. 200 mph.
He was handsome- he seemed nice enough.
His mother had forbidden him from taking flying lessons. She knew him very well.
When she died he began to fly.
I’ll bet she was waiting for him giving him a piece of her mind.