Love Story Foreshadows JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette’s Fatal Plane Crash

FX’s Love Story dramatizes the relationship between John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette, whose high-profile coupling fueled rampant media scrutiny throughout the 1990s. But before exploring the start of their titular romance, the show (which premiered on Feb. 12) begins with a brief look at July 16, 1999 — the day Kennedy, Bessette, and her older sister, Lauren, died in a plane crash.

While the first episode doesn’t depict the crash itself, it does hint at factors that might have played a role in Kennedy and the Bessettes’ fatal accident.

How Did JFK Jr. & The Bessette Sisters Die?

As noted in the National Transportation Safety Board’s report about the accident, Kennedy’s flight departed from Essex County Airport in New Jersey. The plan was to drop Lauren off in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, before arriving in Hyannis, where a Kennedy family wedding was due to take place.

Tragically, the plane would crash into the water at 9:41 p.m. that evening, approximately one hour after takeoff. The NTSB found the probable cause of the accident to be “the pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation.” (This, stated elsewhere in the report, refers to “the inability to determine accurately the attitude or motion of the aircraft in relation to the earth’s surface.”)

The NTSB cited “haze and the dark night” as contributing factors in the accident, and that “toxicological tests were negative for alcohol and drugs of abuse.” Autopsies found that Kennedy and his passengers died instantly, per the Cape Cod Times.

The Aftermath

Recently, a fellow pilot named Kyle Bailey opened up about seeing Kennedy at the airport the evening of the fatal accident. As he told People, he postponed his own trip to Martha’s Vineyard in light of the flight conditions. “The sky was a deep orange, and the sun was setting,” he said. “It was very hazy, hot and humid. I remember thinking, ‘I hope he has an instructor with him.’”

In addition to depicting hazy skies around the time of takeoff, Love Story references the lack of a flight instructor in dialogue. In an interview with the NTSB, one of Kennedy’s certified flight instructors (CFI) said “he would not have felt comfortable with the accident pilot conducting night flight operations on a route similar to the one flown on, and in weather conditions similar to those that existed on, the night of the accident.”

The CFI said he offered to fly with Kennedy that evening but reported that the pilot “wanted to do it alone.”

Another CFI said Kennedy was “methodical about his flight planning and that he was very cautious about his aviation decision-making,” and “had the capability to conduct a night flight to [Martha’s Vineyard] as long as a visible horizon existed.”