July 17, 1999: Civil Air Patrol Joins Search for John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s Airplane

On this date in 1999, Civil Air Patrol aircraft joined in a massive air and sea search for John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s missing 1995 Piper Saratoga II HP.  The plane apparently crashed the evning of July 16, 1999 on a flight from New Jersey to the Kennedy compound on Martha's Vineyard.  Kennedy, the son of the slain President John F. Kennedy, his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister Lauren Bessette, were all killed.

An excerpt from Newsweek:

Between 7:30 and 7:55 Saturday morning, a C-130, 15 Civil Air Patrol planes, two Coast Guard helicopters, an Air National Guard chopper and a UH-25 Falcon took to the skies. A virtual armada--Coast Guard cutters, utility boats, patrol boats and search-and-rescue ships--combed an area 190 nautical miles long by 20 miles wide between Long Island and Cape Cod. By noon, the Air Force had turned to the intelligence community, asking the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, which reports to the director of Central Intelligence, to pull the CIA into the search. Intelligence sources tell NEWSWEEK that three advanced KH-11 photographic satellites in a standard polar orbit were in position to pass over the entire search area at different times.

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