Word: planes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Inside the plane, things must have been comfortable, even cozy. Heading east, across the Hudson and in the direction of Long Island Sound, Kennedy climbed to 5,600 ft., the typical altitude for small planes traveling by visual flight rules. To the left, the light-flecked coast of southern Connecticut was probably visible through the haze, as first Bridgeport, then New Haven, then New London provided a sort of luminous archipelago pointing east. The noise of the engine and the wind would have made it difficult for the occupants to talk to one another, but the plane was equipped with...
What happened over the next hour or so--between the time the plane last made contact with the runway and the time it first made contact with water--is, for now, a matter of conjecture. The take-off, to all appearances, was a smooth one, suggesting that Kennedy's still shaky ankle did not hamper his ability to operate the Piper's pedals. Much of the flight may have been similarly uneventful, if the sketchy radar record is any indication...
Kennedy had to keep his attention elsewhere, and after a while, what he was seeing could not have pleased him. The haze that surrounded his plane as he first climbed into the sky did not disperse, largely obscuring the fingernail paring of a moon that was out that evening. Stars were probably erased completely. Up and down the New England coast, other pilots began flying into the same soup. A number of them radioed the FAA for permission to land at alternative, inland airports, where visibility was better. But Kennedy, who never made radio contact throughout the trip, pressed...
...after takeoff, things got dicier. By this point in Kennedy's flight path, the lights of Westerly, R.I., would ordinarily have been visible to the left, and the porkchop-shaped outline of Block Island should have been off to the right. Kennedy banked the plane, quickly passed the island and found himself, at last, over utterly open ocean. It was at this moment, according to radar records, that the plane, which had been holding steady at 5,600 ft., suddenly began to descend at about 700 ft. per min. That's not emergency speed for this single-engine aircraft...
...unclear why the plane was descending so quickly, but Kennedy may have been trying to drop below the haze. For nearly five minutes, the plane's descent continued at this relatively steep rate, losing about two-thirds of its altitude until it was just 2,300 ft. above the Atlantic wavetops. Martha's Vineyard was by now only 20 miles away, but if the Piper kept dropping at this rate, it would hit ocean well before it reached the landing strip. For a pilot flying in better conditions--even an inexperienced pilot--the next step would be obvious: look...