The new FX show Love Story has brought the tragic story of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette back into the spotlight.
Ryan Murphy’s latest drama series, which aired its finale Thursday night, depicts the whirlwind romance and devastating 1999 deaths of the famous couple. On July 16, 1999, Kennedy was piloting a small aircraft from New Jersey to Martha’s Vineyard with Bessette and her sister, Lauren, on board when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.
The show’s finale depicts the crash and its aftermath, including Kennedy (Paul Anthony Kelly) receiving a weather briefing ahead of the flight.
After take-off, Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon) climbed into the cockpit mid-flight. “I missed you,” Kennedy said to her. “I had a feeling,” she replied. When Kennedy starts to struggle to pilot the plane moments later, Bessette tells him to breathe. The screen then goes to black as faint ocean sounds are heard.
The show does note at the beginning that the story is “inspired by actual events” but that certain depictions have been “dramatized or fictionalized for storytelling purposes.”
Kennedy was meant to land the plane in Martha’s Vineyard to drop Lauren off before continuing on to Hyannis Port, where he and Bessette were supposed to attend the wedding of his cousin, Rory Kennedy.
Several conditions contributed to the crash, including darkness and light haze, according to the official report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
“Other pilots flying similar routes on the night of the accident reported no visual horizon while flying over the water because of haze,” the report stated.
Kennedy’s lack of experience was also highlighted in the report, along with the fact that he opted to fly without an instructor onboard. The businessman had logged over 300 hours of flying time prior to the crash. Only about 55 of those hours were at night, and just nine were in the Saratoga plane he flew that fateful night.
Beyond that, the report stated that “spatial disorientation,” often caused by poor weather conditions, was a factor.
Jeff Guzzetti, one of the NTSB investigators, said in JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography: “His inner ears were playing tricks with his sense of orientation. Your inner ear says you’re turning to the left and you’re actually not. So you correct to the right, thinking that you’re leveling the airplane.
“If he just would’ve flown straight and level and not done the maneuvering, he would’ve been over Martha’s Vineyard in three to five minutes.”
The nine-episode limited series marks the first major scripted series depicting Kennedy and Bessette’s ill-fated love story.
It has faced considerable backlash from surviving family members, including Kennedy’s nephew, Jack Schlossberg, who previously blasted Murphy for “profiting off of” his family’s tragedy “in a grotesque way.”
Murphy later addressed Schlossberg’s concern, telling Variety that he would donate the show’s proceeds to the John F. Kennedy Library, as Schlossberg suggested. “I also like Jack’s Instagram when he just lip syncs to ’90s girl groups stuff. I want more of that,” Murphy added. “But I think it would be really hard if your relatives are always in the media.”
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