JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette died in a plane crash 27 years ago. It sparked rumors of the “Kennedy curse.”

As the son of a president and a member of one of America’s most prominent political dynasties, John F. Kennedy Jr. was destined for the spotlight.

John Kennedy Jr. was born on November 25, 1960, just two weeks after his father was elected president. His father was assassinated on November 22, 1963, just three days before JFK’s third birthday.

JFK Jr., affectionately called “John John” by the public, attended the funeral on his birthday and was photographed saluting his father’s casket.

For most of his adolescence and adulthood, he remained out of the public eye.

However, his public image began to change after he introduced his uncle, Ted Kennedy, at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.

In September 1988, People Kennedy, then a 27-year-old third-year law student at New York University, was called “the Sexiest Man Alive.”

JFK Jr. also dated a few celebrities during the 1990s, including “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker, Cindy Crawford, and Daryl Hannah.

They met in a fitting room at Calvin Klein, where Bessette helped JFK Jr. select wardrobe items, Elizabeth Beller wrote in “Once Upon a Time: The Charismatic Life of Caroline Bessette Kennedy,” which People cited.

Tall, sophisticated and beautiful, JFK Jr.’s new girlfriend captivated the audience.

After two years of dating, the couple married in an intimate ceremony on Cumberland Island, Georgia, People reported.

Media attention may have inspired Kennedy to obtain his pilot’s license in 1998.

“It was one of the happiest times he ever had. He was floating with the hawks in his Buckeye.” [plane]. “It was freedom,” his close friend Robbie Littell told “JFK Jr: An Intimate Oral Biography” author Rosemary Terenzio, according to People.

“It’s the only place I can go where no one will bother me,” he said. I live in complete silence, and no one can reach me except the air traffic controllers. “Maybe this will give you an insight into what he was really dealing with on the ground,” his college friend Gary Ginsberg said, People magazine reported.

The Washington Post reported that Kennedy left Essex County Airport near Fairfield, New Jersey, at about 8:38 p.m. on Friday, July 16, 1999. The sun had already begun to set and the “foggy conditions” reported earlier in the evening were getting worse, People reported.

Kennedy planned to drop off his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette on Martha’s Vineyard before traveling to his family’s compound in Hyannis Port with Caroline. The couple was scheduled to attend his cousin Rory Kennedy’s wedding the next day, according to People magazine.

However, the plane never landed on Martha’s Vineyard.

An unidentified driver reported that the plane failed to arrive at Martha’s Vineyard Airport as expected, the newspaper reported, citing an NBC report. The search for the missing plane began in the early hours of July 17.

The Coast Guard then began investigating whether the plane had landed at another airport, the Washington Post reported.

By 4 a.m., the Coast Guard began searching for the missing plane, and by 7:30 a.m., the Air Force and Coast Guard launched 20 flying vehicles and two boats to search the area between Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard, according to the newspaper’s schedule.

On Sunday afternoon, what was presumed to be debris from the plane was found on Philbin Beach on Martha’s Vineyard. Among the debris was a headrest that was later concluded to be from the missing plane and a black bag containing Lauren Bissette’s business card.

Rory Kennedy’s wedding, scheduled for 6pm that night, was postponed as the family awaited further news.

After more wreckage was found in the following days, the search and rescue mission became a search and recovery mission, the Washington Post reported.

All three passengers on the plane are now presumed dead. John F. Kennedy Jr. was 38 years old. Carolyn Bessette Kennedy was 33 years old, and her sister Lauren Bessette was 34 years old.

The New York Times reported that the debris field was identified off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, relatively close to the property once owned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Kennedy’s mother. (Kennedy Onassis died in 1994.)

The bodies of John F. Kennedy Jr., Caroline Bessette Kennedy, and Loren Bessette were discovered by Navy divers on July 22, 1999, after an extensive search approved by President Bill Clinton.

The bodies of the crash victims, which were “near and under” the main body of the plane, were still bound, The Times reported.

Kennedy flew only about 72 hours without a flight instructor, and had only about 300 total flight hours, the New York Times reported in July 2000. He reportedly Kennedy declined an offer to accompany a flight instructor for the group on their trip.

As a newly trained pilot, Kennedy was not licensed to fly and navigate the air using flying instruments. Instead, he only trained to fly using sight alone, which would have been extremely difficult in dark or foggy conditions such as those that occurred on the night of July 16.

“Flying at night over featureless terrain or water, especially in fog or overcast skies, is prime preparation for spatial disorientation,” Warren Morningstar, a spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, told the Times.

About an hour into the flight, the plane’s flight path became erratic as it began its descent into Martha’s Vineyard, indicating that the pilot may have become disoriented by the dark sky and water, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded.

“His flight path into the water is consistent with what is known as a graveyard spiral,” Jeff Guzzetti, the NTSB investigator into the incident, told Terenzio, according to People magazine. “The plane makes a spiral nose down… kind of like going down into the sewers. The plane went into a final turn and stayed in that turn almost all the way to the ocean.”

The Washington Post reported that the plane did not send a distress call. Instead, it made a final landing and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in less than 30 seconds.

The bodies of Kennedy, Kennedy, and Bissette were cremated and buried at sea off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard on July 22, 1999.

“We are deeply saddened and indescribable by the loss of John, Caroline and Lauren Bessette,” Ted Kennedy said in a statement on behalf of the Kennedy family. “John was a shining light in all of our lives and in the lives of the nation and world he first knew as a young child.”

The extensive search captured the nation’s attention, as did the tragedy of the deaths of the three young passengers. Another tragic incident for the Kennedy family, the plane crash added to rumors of a Kennedy family curse.

“I looked everywhere and couldn’t find another family since the ancient Greek family of Atreus that had suffered more disasters and misfortunes than the Kennedys,” said Edward Klein, author of “The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Haunted America’s First Family for 150 Years,” according to the Washington Post.

While there are many logical reasons behind the fateful plane crash, it is poignant that the Kennedy family, one of the richest and most influential political families in the world, has suffered so many tragedies over the past 100 years.

“The humanity of their story is what keeps us engaged,” Kennedy family biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli told NBC News in 2019.

“We take a behind-the-scenes look at their wealthy lifestyle, and see that, despite all the advantages they enjoy, tragedy can still strike.”