JFK Jr. Crash Redux-Carolyn Bessette Caused Fatal Plane Accident by Using Cell Phone

New York Post ^ | Thursday June 27, 2002 | Neal Travis

[codebreaker]

Three years after the air crash death of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn, and her sister Lauren Bessette, the National Enquirer is coming out this weekend with a 26 page section devoted to the tragedy.

The supermarket tab says it's had an investigative team working full time since the the fateful day of July 16.

One claim they make is that the crash wasn't John's fault-that is was caused by Carolyn using her cell phone during the trip and and perhaps blocking out vital flight control functions.

You can assume this investigation was taken seriously at the tab, because American Media head David Pecker was young Kennedy's mentor at George Magazine and has never gotten over the death of his friend.

[codebreaker]

Is that possible in a small plane, for a cell to jam things up that bad?

[dighton]

By the time you've read this, I'll have left without a forwarding address.

[Not now, Not ever!]

Not impossible, but about as far fetched as you can get.

[maro]

This seems highly unlikely. A cell phone requires proximity to a tower. In the air, there are no towers. Those phones on airliners connect up via a special transmitter. A plain ordinary cell phone just won't work in flight. A cell phone will work on the ground, and the airlines do require that cell phones be turned off before takeoff. But young Kennedy's plane crashed DURING FLIGHT.

[gg188]

I hope you have your industrial strength fire-retardant flak jacket on. You're gonna be toast for even posting something about Junior that differs from the CW.

Repeat after me: JFK Jr. was a totally inexperienced pilot. JFK Jr.'s ineptness and ignorance about flying an airplane caused the crash. Anything else is tin-foil-fedora stuff.

Now, get out of the way as all the FE pilots and others come on to tell us exactly how inept and inexperienced Junior was at flying and how stupid anyone is who entertains any other possible theory.

[the crow]

what about all the passengers on 9/11 that called their loved ones? they specifically said they called on cell phones.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Guess she didn't learn from Eve and the apple.

[dalereed]

The reason that cell phones are outlawed in flight has nothing to do with interfering with navigational instruments.

The FAA outlawed their use in flight at the request of the FCC because when they were used airborne they had direct line of sight to multiple reciever towers and they were all fighting to take the call and disrupting the cell phone system.

Until they were outlawed, private pilots were using them all the time.

[codebreaker]

And how Junior was flying on a hazy day under visual flight rules..etc

[okie01]

"what about all the passengers on 9/11 that called their loved ones?"

I believe they used the special "air phones" tucked in the seatbacks, that accept credit cards.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Hazy day, and over water - that's not a good combo for a novice.

[tortoise]

1.) Cell phones work very well on airplanes. The biggest problem is that the coverage is so good that you can actually connect to multiple cell sites simultaneously due to the extended range. Cell phone networks aren't really designed to work well like this.

2.) No, a cell phone won't crash a plane. The whole practice of turning off cell phones on airplanes is based on extremely anal bizarre hypotheticals that really aren't terribly plausible. Half the the things the FAA does is just to "be safe", not because they have a good reason for doing it. Even if there was a measurable effect it wouldn't crash the plane, only mess with instrumentation like radios.

[Fred Mertz]

His aircraft was sabotaged because he was getting ready to run for US Senator from the great state of New York.

I wonder who might have done that to him?

[jlogajan]

Small planes use mechanical linkages. Artificial horizons use mechanical gyros. I suppose it is possible to screw up the VOR and end up flying in the wrong direction if on instruments on. Wasn't he flying night VFR, though?

The chances the cellphone screwed up his IFR instruments to the point of having him crash it -- slim to none.

[Cowgirl]

Yeah, too bad Janet Reno isn't the Attorney General anymore.
I'm sure she'd have VWRC shaking in their boots. It's
obvious no fat-legged liberal with visions of dominating
the earth didn't do it.

[elbucko]

I wonder who might have done that to him?

Arkancide?

[monday]

"I believe they used the special "air phones" tucked in the seatbacks, that accept credit cards."

Some did, others used their cell phones.

[piasa]

Did he have an instrument rating and a bunch of hours under his belt?

[Righty1]

No many used their cells.

[elbucko]

In the aircraft (Piper) JFK Jr. was in the flight controls are steel cable and or metal push-pull rod. Elementary flight controls are all mechanical, not electrical, fly-by-wire or hydraulic. The major flight instruments; Attitude Indicator, Airspeed Ind. Turn indicator, Altimeter, Rate of climb indicator, and Directional Gyro are ALL powered by air. Either the barometric pressure, the pressure of air on the pitot (peetow) tube (airspeed) or a gyro turned by vacuum air from an engine pump.

The only possible interference from a cell phone could have been to radio navigation and GPS. Both of which are so highly unlikely as being in the impossible category, until proved otherwise.

Poor young John became disoriented (didn't know up from down) and would not believe the info the instruments mentioned above were telling him.

Or, Hillary wanted to be senator and it was Arkancide!