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A pilot's story
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"He had a hard cast and was using crutches," recalls another businessman who also met last month with Kennedy in New York to discuss a partnership with George magazine. "He was pretty pathetic on those crutches. I'm so sorry he made such a bad judgment call. I can't believe a novice pilot would head out into the night and haze over the water without an instrument rating."

A recently broken foot could have restricted Kennedy's range of motion, but no orthopedists would comment on that possibility without having examined him. Dr. Alan Gross, an orthopedic surgeon from Toronto known for his treatment of professional athletic injuries, told Salon News: "I can't possibly comment on this fracture without actually examining it. It's too contentious. You're going into choppy waters here."

Some pilots dismiss the notion that a weakened foot would interfere with Kennedy's flight performance, saying the foot pedals, or rudders, are rarely used, and don't require much pressure anyway. But Valerie Flanagan, a spokeswoman for New Piper Aircraft, told Salon News, "With the airplane, of course, you need two feet to maneuver. How his [injury] interfered, I can't say."

Family pressures: "My wife insists."

Flying at night wasn't Kennedy's first choice. The Kennedy trip was scheduled for daylight hours, but had to be postponed when sister-in-law Lauren Bessette, a vice president at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, got held up at work and couldn't leave early as planned. The party then hit traffic on the way to the airport, further delaying the trip and pushing it back until after dark. There has been speculation that the delay also caused Kennedy to take shortcuts as he ran through pre-flight checks, warming up the plane in a practice area, for instance, rather than on the runway.

On Monday, the New York Post reported that Kennedy had been reluctant to fly into Martha's Vineyard in the first place, but had been pressured to do so by his wife, Carolyn. Kennedy reportedly told C. David Heymann, the author of "A Woman Called Jackie," whom he was recruiting to write for George, that "I don't even want to go to Martha's Vineyard. I'm flying my own plane ... Unfortunately, I have to take my sister-in-law with us. She's going to Martha's Vineyard. My wife insists I take her there.

"I don't want to do that," Kennedy reportedly told Heymann. "I said I'd rather fly straight to Hyannis ... but my wife's insisting." Heymann told the Post that the complaints about his wife sounded "tongue-in-cheek ... as though, 'What can you do with a wife who has a bulldog tenacity.'"

Kennedy's last words to Heymann were: "This means I have to land twice. I'm really not that experienced a pilot." Heymann did not return calls to Salon News.
salon.com | July 20, 1999

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