Pilot Error Concluded in JFK Jr. Crash
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NEW YORK — Federal investigators have concluded pilot error caused the plane crash that killed John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and his sister-in-law, NBC News reported Thursday.
The National Transportation Safety Board is finalizing its report, which is expected to be released in the next several weeks, according to the network.
Rather than use the words “pilot error,” however, the NTSB is likely to attribute the cause to Kennedy becoming “spatially disoriented,” which is when a pilot loses track of the plane’s position in the sky, NBC reported.
The NTSB also is likely to point to a host of factors the night of July 16, when the plane Kennedy was piloting crashed off the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard: thick haze, the darkness of night and the fact that Kennedy was flying over open water with no lights below to guide him.
Kennedy’s single-engine Piper Saratoga crashed as he was flying with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister Lauren, from Fairfield, N.J., near New York City, to Martha’s Vineyard.
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