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There are conflicting reports about just how much time Kennedy had logged in the cockpit. The Boston Globe reported Sunday that he had only registered 46 flight hours, quoting an unnamed FAA source, only six hours beyond the 40 required for a license. But other publications have credited Kennedy with roughly 100 hours of flying time -- which would still mark him as a novice.

While flying experts were reluctant to directly criticize Kennedy's decision to fly that night, there was near-consensus that his novice status made such a flight a challenge. "Reasonable pilot judgment says that, if I'm a relatively new pilot and I don't have a lot of night experience, and if it's hazy and the visibility is not very good, then I would say, 'This may be beyond my skill level,'" Warren Morningstar, spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilot's Association (AOPA), the world's largest civil aviation organization, told Salon News.

"A pilot with less than 200 hours of logged time is considered low-time and there's a corresponding decrease in the number of accidents after pilots reach that level," Morningstar said.

Although Kennedy was technically certified to fly in the conditions he encountered Friday night, he did not have special training to read flight instruments, which could have helped him navigate at night over water. The instrument-rated license is often dubbed the "blind flying license," with good reason.

In a 1993 Atlantic Monthly article headlined "The Turn," William Langewiesche explained the total disorientation that comes with night flying: "The inner ear, and with it the sense of balance, is neutralized by the motion of flight. The airplane could be momentarily upside down and passengers would not know."

To obtain a pilot's license, students must spend three hours flying in darkness, and have three hours of instrument training. But instrument flying "gives the pilot an extra set of eyes that virtually doubles his or her vision, safety and utility," according to a course description for an instrument training course at American Flyers Flight School.

Without instrument training, pilots say it would be easy to get disoriented in weather conditions like those that surrounded Martha's Vineyard Friday night -- flying in haze, at night, over water.

Next page | "It was just black"