37: The JFK Jr. Plane Crash: A behind-the-scenes account from July 1999

David, hang on for one second. From Hyannis, we're going to go to Washington, our Washington bureau and our bureau chief there, Tim Russer. Tim, what do you have of late? You can add to this, Brian. A family member has told some friends that the plane was on approach to the Martha's Vineyard airport when the contact was lost. They believe it was about 10 minutes out from landing. We have gotten better information from both the airports and the FAA through radar analysis of a better location, better possible location, and we are now centering our search about 17 miles west of Martha's Vineyard. The approach to Martha's Vineyard Airport, indications are that we may have found some debris and that's being investigated right now. It has now been confirmed that all three bodies, John F. Kennedy, Jr. His wife Carolyn and her sister Lauren, have been found on the ocean floor off.

Martha's Viney Friday, July 16, 1999 for many of you, I assume you may not remember what you were doing that night or what you were doing that day, but many of you, I'm sure, remember what you were doing the following day. And the moment you heard that John F. Kennedy Jr. S plane went missing. He took off from Teterboro Airport, New Jersey on the evening of July 16th with his wife Carolyn and her sister Lauren Bissette and Washington and when they didn't arrive on Martha's Vineyard that evening, a call was made to the Coast Guard. And by the morning of the 17th, it was an international news story. This week on the podcast A behind the scenes perspective from the search, recovery and press coverage of the JFK junior Plane crash from insiders who were there. You'll hear from the person who received word of the call from JFK Jr. S family that his plane was overdue. And a radio reporter who was one of the lone members of the press was broadcasting live from the waters off the coast of Martha's Vineyard during the search efforts for the Confident Communications podcast. I'm your host Molly McPherson and I was that radio reporter. At the time of this recording. I am just returning from celebrating the fourth of July with my family on Cape Cod. I have been a long time lover of Cape Cod and we have longtime friends who live on the Cape. So that allows me to get my Cape fix. But I first visited Cape Cod when I went on a family trip from Minnesota to visit the Cape in the Islands and I have a distinct memory of passing the Kennedy compound on the ferry on the way to Nantucket off of Hyannis. And when I moved to Boston to attend Boston University the first thing I did when I got to Boston was to squeeze a trip into Martha's Vineyard before school even, because I couldn't wait to get back to Cape Cod. And once I lived in Boston for good and eventually Washington D.C. the Cape and the island still is a part of my life. It's really a backdrop for my life. I spent summers in Nantucket, Christmas strolls in Nantucket. I got engaged at Sankeny Light in Nantucket, my annual girls weekend to Martha's Vineyard that I will be attending in a few weeks. And even this weekend I was there where I made the mistake of telling my 14 year old daughter Quinn that Chris Pratt was also in Hyannis Port at the Kennedy compound, visiting his new bride Katherine Schwarzenegger and her family and that he could be seen in the annual parade. And she wanted to go and I said no, we don't leave Chatham to go to Hyannisport. But when I was at our friend's house in Chatham, there on the coffee table was People magazine and on the COVID JFK Jr. And at the top was a photograph of Chris Pratt and his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger from their wedding. But JFK Jr. The family of the Kennedys, it still evokes so much interest. The COVID story on JFK Jr. Is about a new book called America's Reluctant Prince by Stephen M. Gillen. And it explores the toll of his father's and uncle's assassination and the pressure for JFK Jr to live up to his name. And what a name it was. And because it is so identified with Cape Cod, the family's presence can be felt everywhere. Which is the reason why I wanted to record this episode for this week. Today's release date marks the 20th anniversary of the plane crash that took the lives of JFK Jr. His wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette. So much has been written and said about the events that weekend, but I wanted to bring more of a behind the scenes point of view because of my proximity to the event, both physically, since I was living there at the time of the crash, but also through some of my connections. In July of 1999, I was a newly married Coast Guard spouse living on Cape Cod and we were headed to Washington D.C. soon and I wanted to find work as a journalist after we moved. So I picked up work as a reporter for a radio station in Cape Cod. It was a news talk station and I was working there as a stringer before our move. My beat at the time. Oh boy. Community stories, town meetings, Local events, pancake breakfast. Driving up and down the Cape looking for any good story I could find. But I did love the work. Nellie Bly I was not. But I enjoyed covering news stories. Big news stories didn't typically happen in Cape Co. Except when the Kennedys were involved. So before my time working there, of course, we had the JFK awaiting his results from the presidential election of 1960 from the family compound in Hyannis Port. Then, of course, there's the Chappaquiddick incident with Senator Kennedy in 1969. But the next big story on Cape Cod, this triumvirate of stories was the plane crash of JFK Jr. In 1999. When I first heard about the plane crash, I suspect I heard about it the same way that most people did, from watching television news, specifically cable television news. When I first heard the reports about JFK Jr missing, I raced out the door, got in my car and drove to the radio station to grab my recording equipment and headed straight to Woods Hole, which is a part of Falmouth, Massachusetts. Now, that morning, I knew I had to race out of the house to report the story because I had an angle. I was a new Coast Guard spouse independent, which meant I had an ID badge. And that also meant that I could get on to the station there. And I also had intel about what was happening. And I had a job at a radio station. So I was going to cover this story. And I remember distinctly that morning. It was a summer morning and traffic was already horrible. Anyone that's been to Cape Cape Cod, if you have to drive on Route 6 or on 28 in the summer, it's next to impossible. Making matters worse, it was a Saturday, which is the changeover day for people who are renting on the Cape. Now, I may or may not have made my way down to the Coast Guard station with my id. And I may or may not have donned a blazing orange Coast Guard life vest and hopped onto a Massachusetts environmental police boat with that vest to join a search looking for JFK Jr. S plane. When people talk about the press and their insatiable drive and disregard for rules to get a news story, whenever I hear that, I always want to jump and defend reporters. But then I remember, wait a minute. Yeah, I did that once. But there I was out on the waters, and the press wasn't allowed to report anything from the waters at that time. It was virtually shut down to almost everyone except for people who were searching. But there I was with my cell phone. Not my smartphone, my cell phone, a tape recorder And a microphone looking for the remains of JFK junior And his plane. The search area was focused on an area five to 10 miles off of Aquinnah and that's on the western tip of Martha's Vineyard. And oh, how I wish the 2019 Molly could have told the 1999 Molly to grab a camera with you because I remember clearly sitting on that boat and watching the guys on the boat sift through anything they could find, combing the waters looking for anything from that plane. And every time we saw some type of debris, you wondered, was that from the plane? It was like no other experience I've ever experienced in my life. And when I would try to report from the back of the boat, I remember one of the environmental police guys asking me what I was doing. I put all my. Put all my recording equipment away. As soon as the boat pulled into Manemsha on Martha's Vineyard for gas, I quickly hopped off, got on the. Got on the dock there and I quickly filed a story with WXCK and with WRKO out of Boston. And I did this while they were filling the gas tank. So I was watching them because I did not want them to take off without me because I think they knew something was up. But I could not lose my spot. So I very, very quickly filed some stories. And I remember some were. And I tried to find the tape of it. I have it on a cassette tape of all things. But as I was filing this story, I talked about the search, I talked about what was happening. And so I was being broadcast down on the Cape and also Boston and all of the sister radio stations. And so those guys, they sussed out, they knew exactly what I was doing, but they did allow me to carry on with them and continue on the boat ride. Now, there was a time when the press could legitimately be shut out of a story. Remember back to President Kennedy, what the public didn't know about the behind the scenes at the White House during that administration or like I mentioned, Chappaquiddick and Martha's Vineyard, how Ted Kennedy and his handlers were able to stop the clock on the press coverage and message. Senator Kennedy out of trouble for the death of the staffer Mary Jo Kopechne. The relationship between the press and public figures has changed dramatically since the mid 20th century compared to today with the First Amendment and all. But the press has expanded to newspaper, radio, television and cable news and then eventually the Internet. And with this change for the public consumption of news is how the news has reported it. But if you remember Back to technology. In 1999, most people were getting their news from cable news. There was still broadcast news, which people watch the local affiliates, the national affiliates, abc, CBS, and NBC. We had radio, we had newspaper. And it was a time of big news stories, and these stories spread. But the JFK story, the plane crash story, was different because it had that Kennedy touch of controlling the press. Now, what you'll hear from my guest is that the Kennedy family was dealing with yet another tragedy to their family and wanted to keep the story contained. And with the help of the White House, they were able to do so. So the press was virtually shut down from report off the waters of Martha's Vineyard. And since the Coast Guard was patrolling the waters, they could spot the reporters and they could also monitor press reports. And they could find out where these reporters were getting their information so they could silence the press. One of the Coasties told me that in one of the meetings that the Coast Guard was having, the admiral at the time had asked, who is this woman reporting from the waters? Find her and stop her. No one should be reporting from the waters off of Martha's Vineyard. Little did he know that it was a Coast Guard spouse at the time doing that. But this story was a different story because it was a Kennedy story, and it happened on Cape Cod. And it was during the presidency of a man who greatly admired the family, President Clinton.

As the search continues, I want to express our family support and offer our prayers and those of all Americans for John Kennedy Jr. His wife Carolyn, her sister Lauren, and to their fine families. I also want to thank the Coast Guard and all those who have worked so hard in this endeavor.

That was President Clinton speaking on the lawn of the White House two days after the crash, when it was still in the search phase. The message, if you heard, was clear. He was going to offer support and resources to help the Kennedy family recover the wreckage and by extension, contain the story because he felt the family deserved the privacy for the sacrifice made by so many members of the Kennedy family. Now, would that ever happen today?

Not likely.

But let's go back to the beginning. My guest is Captain W. Russell Webster. He's a retired Coast Guard captain who now works as a New England Regional administrator for fema. However, at the time, he was serving as the commander of what was then known as Coast Guard Group Woods Hole, located in Falmouth. And if you ever were to hop on a ferry to go to Martha's Vineyard, the slow ferry, if you look over before you hop on the ferry, you can see Group Woods Hole. This is the story of JFK jr's plane crash as it happened from the inside.

Hello, Captain Webster. Thank you for joining me on the Confident Communications podcast. Hello.

Hey, good morning, Molly. How are you?

I'm very happy one, because you're joining me today on this podcast. When I looked at the calendar and saw that we were coming up on the 20th anniversary of JFK Jr. S plane crash, my mind went back to that day, because I was living in Cape Cod at the time, and I thought, I have to do a podcast on this from just the point of view of what was happening that day. But you were the first person that I thought of, because every time I go back to Cape Cod and I was there this weekend, I think back to that weekend, and you really had a very unique perspective in your role as the commander. Correct. Of Coast Guard Group Woods Hole.

Yeah. I was the Group Woods Hole commander, which had the water area from the Rhode island border up around the duxbury and out 200 miles. I had 15 Coast Guard units, about 1500 people who conducted about 1200 search and rescue cases and about 1500 law enforcement cases every year.

And that's a very, very big position. And for anyone that's visited Martha's Vineyard, many of them have seen where you worked. You know, if anyone walks across to get onto the ferry to go to Martha's Vineyard, no matter if they're from Massachusetts or not, they've seen the station right there in Wood Hole. It's open to the public where people can see it, correct?

Yeah. Woods Hole is a bucolic location with stunning scenery. I was fortunate enough to have resided in the Nopska Point lightkeepers quarters for three years there. And that's where I was with 17 of my friends at the time of the first notification of John F. Kennedy Jr. S airplane crash, because it was on the first anniversary of me taking command at Woods Hole. So I had a lot of people in my house that were very interested in what was happening.

Now, that's interesting. So it was it.

So the year to the day that.

You took over as commander and you were living in Nopska Light, which is a great place to live with your family. I can imagine having lived down there. But when that happened, most people associate the anniversary July 16, and you'll hear all the news reports, as everyone will hear now. But most people heard of this plane crash on July 17 when they woke up on Saturday morning. You, on the other hand, I assume, heard it after it happened, correct?

Well, actually, it was a very early morning notification. The first, first call that came into the coast guard was at 1:55am on the 17th from family friend Lee Radswell. And that information was quickly relayed to the 1st Coast Guard District Command and the Air Force Rescue Coordination center. And they began an immediate water search between Long island and Martha's Vineyard over a hundred mile track.

It was members of the Kennedy family. They had gathered in Hyannis Port. There was a wedding of Rory, who's the daughter of the late Senator Robert Kennedy. So here we are on early, early Saturday morning. So before most people are awake, before the press even anything is happening, you're already at the station and you're already working. Did anyone know at that time, even though the search was Long island, all the way up to Cape Cod, that's a huge search area. Did anyone know that it should. Was anyone aware that he was coming into Martha's Vineyard? Did you know at the time that you needed to shrink the search area? What was it like? No.

Initially we knew of the expected arrival time at Martha's Vineyard. However, we didn't know because of the visual flight plan that was filed, as opposed to something more formal where there would be constant radar track. We had to search that 100 mile track, or about 10,000 square miles initially and within. Within a few hours after that early morning standup at grupoitzvall, parts of the wreckage started to wash ashore on Philbin beach on Martha's Vineyard. And that was a clear indication that something catastrophic had happened. And I think probably a few hours later call it late morning, the Air Force Rescue Coordination center had some more precise information that showed that the airplane was in a slow descent about 9:45pm the night before on the 16th, about 17 miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard.

When I was alerted in the morning when this had happened, the first thing I did was grab, you know, grab all my recording gear and being newly married to a Coast Guard officer, started making phone calls to the Coast Guard and one was to Master Chief Jack Downey, who was in Port Judith. And he's one of those old salty coasties that knew right away. He said, you know, a lot of the search is off of Block Island. You know, it's this huge search event. But he knew, he said, if it's Martha's Vineyard, the wreckage, or they'll be, it will be seen around the approach of Martha's Vineyard. So back at that time, do you remember there being a lot of confusion in that Saturday morning in terms of where to search, or did the Coast Guard know right away where they were going and where they were looking.

Well, first of all, there's always a lot of confusion and no one has a perfect plan when someone like John F. Kennedy Jr. Or another luminary is at risk. I think there was initially a good amount of confusion because of the initial ambiguity of where he might have been at any moment. There was discussion about, well, he might have run into some difficult weather or visibility that challenged his flying abilities and he might have put into a small airport and just not let anybody know. But I will tell you, by mid morning on the 17th, it became clear based on the debris that he was fairly close to Martha's Vineyard. And within, within a few hours after that early effort in that much larger area, we refocused immediately to the area that focused on his approach.

Now that's interesting because I know as you relate it to me, Even though it's 20 years from now, you have such a clear memory of those events and even the technology that you had at your disposal at that time, even though it was new technology that could pinpoint where it was. But I remember more from a civilian point of view that there was a lot of confusion. And with the press report and the press reports, the miasma of everything going on, there was a lot of confusion and a lot of blame. And you know, on the inside, all the work that the Coast Guard was doing, the search and rescue efforts, even though at that time you probably knew it was a recovery efforts, a recovery effort, but the press wasn't necessarily reporting that. Now what was happening with that disconnect between the truth and what the press was reporting? Do you remember any of that on that Saturday, like on those, that first day?

Yeah, it was, I think it was a struggle for the Coast Guard because it was. There was dual channel reporting between the district and the group. I remember being on a conference call with the BBC in London, giving an interview. And the policy at that time was if you knew about it, you could talk about it. And so I was giving BBC the fresh narrative. I'd set up a mini joint information center, although we didn't call it that back then, next to my command center. And I remember getting a phone call during the interview from my boss in Boston, the chief of operations in. He said, hey, we gotta shut your media operation down because the press is triangulating what you know about the case with what the Admiral is talking to the press about, and there's some inconsistent messaging going on. So for me that was, I don't know, about 10:30 in the morning, for me, that was a point of departure from anything close to normalcy, dealing with. With the media, because I was putting out fresh information. I couldn't feed it fast enough to the District and the admiral. And the media was pointing out the differential between what I was reporting and what the Admiral was reporting. And at that particular point, everything shifted to the District's responsibility to handle media. And I will tell you this, this was an epical media event that I think rivaled even the OJ Chase in terms of its intensity.

And I can speak to that as well. I remember it clearly that day. And Admiral Larrabee, who was up at the 1st Coast Guard District when he was reporting, did he have a different set of pressures that you had in terms of what you could report on and what you could not report on. In other words, were you hearing anything from the White House or from the Kennedy family, anything different that he was hearing?

No. I will tell you that throughout this operation, both at the group in Woods Hole and the District out of Boston, the White House and the Kennedy family, although the family was very persistent about needing fresh information. We're incredibly respectful of the Coast Guard, our reputation and what we were trying to do. The first 40 hours of the operation was entirely focused on finding people alive, even though the debris that was washing ashore indicated that there had been a horrific crash.

Publicly, did the Coast Guard have to say it was a search and rescue, but inside, you all knew it was more of a recovery effort.

At that point, I would say after the first 24 hours, there was a solid feeling based on the type of debris that was coming ashore, the door of the plane that was very crumpled, and a few other things that were coming ashore that we were fairly certain at that point that, you know, we were. Would eventually be dealing with a recovery operation. In fact, even before the first 40 hours of rescue efforts, transition to recovery, we were beginning to move other assets like NOAA into the area to assist us with the eventual recovery effort. Because even if we were to find people alive, we knew that because of the interest in the family, that we were going to have to recover the airplane as well, to avoid novelty seekers, you know, obtaining souvenirs.

Right? Now, let me ask you your opinion on this. This was 1999, and back then, and I remember this clearly when I. When at the time in 1999, people had cell phones, but people did not have cameras on their cell phones. They were not smartphones then. And we were still, for the most part, people still use film in their camera. They had digital cameras, of course. Have you ever thought about the difference in the coverage if it were to happen today? Even though you've had a long, exemplary career with the US Coast Guard, you still work in the federal government right now. But do you ever think about if you were in charge of Woods Hole today and that plane crash happened with John F. Kennedy Jr. A much older one, how different it would be?

Oh, absolutely. I think one of the chief challenges we face probably within the first day was the technology of cell phones was not for the most part digital at that time. And it was very easy to be intercepted in the media. The media was intercepting our cell phone conversations. So they had.

They were. How do you know that?

Well, we pieced that together after the fact and we ended up having to, to move the media Joint Information center from its proximate location near our command post at what was then Coast Guard air station over to the gymnasium. And that worked well because cell phone interception at that time because of non digital interceptions was limited in its distance range. But to answer your question more precisely, I think it would have been an even more intense media spectacle than it was even in 99, where we saw media trucks, the usual satellite trucks just engulfed this small area around Woods Hole. We had media that were perched above the base in the later stages of the case that were trying to get the perfect picture as the bodies were being brought ashore in a 52 foot vessel.

What I do remember from a point of view, since I was one of those people trying to work that case and what I distinctly remember, yes, I remember all of the trucks and all of the. Just the coverage from Woods Hole in that very congested area. If anyone's ever driven that, that stretch, it's very congested. I may or may not have gotten on a boat from the Massachusetts Environmental Police to report since I was working for a radio station. It was, I was just there with a, with a recorder and was recording and reporting from the search efforts out in the waters. And what I do remember is that there was shutdown on the press like they, the Coast Guard did not want anyone reporting. And at one time I was, you know, I was using my maiden name and there was a Coastie that had told me that said that the Admiral had heard that there was a radio reporter out there and mentioned me by my maiden name and said we cannot have any reporters out there reporting. So do you remember that? That there was just kind of a lockdown that the Coast Guard or the White House, someone did not want people reporting, period.

Honestly, Molly, at that particular point in the operation, since the District had taken over the public affairs engagement of essentially the world. And I. And I say that because pre Facebook and all of that, I began to get emails from people from around the world who I hadn't heard from in 20 or more years saying, Hey, I saw you on TV. No. After the District took over the media profile, the first day about noon, I was in full operational mode, shifted things the Unified Coordination Post and at Joint Base Cape Cod and started working with 25 other agencies to coordinate more than 50 surface and air platforms and helping get them, keeping them safe and finding the victims and eventually recovering them with NOAA and the Navy's help.

Do you remember? And again, I'm coming at this from a civilian point of view. I remember on that Saturday during where everyone was still in this search phase, the Massachusetts State Police got involved and they were allowed to do all the press they wanted. And I distinctly remember his last name was Bird. I think it was either Captain Bird or Colonel Byrd with the Massachusetts State Police reporting from the shores of Martha's Vineyard. And he was talking about the efforts and the search efforts. And he had said at one point that the Coast Guard had stopped searching. He may have said at night or stopped their search efforts, and it was incorrect. And I remember at the time, and also, you know, being married to a public relations officer, a public affairs officer in the Coast Guard, there was that frustration that when the Coast Guard can't speak or if you don't have someone speaking for you, someone will speak for you. And that the Massachusetts State Police, that they were starting to become the ad hoc spokespeople for the Coast Guard. Do you remember that at all? All?

Yeah, I remember getting that report and I remember feeding it up to the District and I. Well, to make sure everybody knows, we never stopped searching. There might have been a temporary pause at night because of visibility and conditions, but for the most part, you know, from the get go, the Coast Guard and, And the Massachusetts Marine Patrol and other organizations never stopped looking the objectives and how much something is costing and the survival times and things like that. There were some very critical meetings where we were talking about exit strategies, but those were not public meetings. And once that discussion, I remember it specifically made its way up the chain of command, there was a discussion between the President and, I believe, Admiral Larrabee and a few other people. And basically the President gave us a blank check to find America's son.

Now, when you mentioned the President at the time, that was President Clinton, and people do remember that he did have affinity for the Kennedys, of course, in the family. And I remember the footage on a boat sailing with Jackie O at the time, before she had passed on. But President Clinton at the time, obviously close to the Kennedys. There was this issue, as you mentioned, about the resources and people were questioning publicly, vocally, you know, on television, online media, didn't exist then in social media. Why are we spending so much money to find this particular John? What about John Fisherman? Like, why aren't we spending the time on him? But you thought that President Clinton messaged that aspect of it? Well, correct. Why the efforts?

Absolutely. And I think. I think it was the right decision. I think one of the challenges of these things is every government agency attempts to treat everyone as equal in terms of their level of effort. But the reality of the matter was this was another president's son. There would, had, we noticed, eventually put the resources in necessary to find him. The public and people with the capability outside the government would have found that airplane. And I believe it was the right thing to do to find the airplane and the human remains in it, recover them, and respect, respectfully spread their ashes at sea from the USS Briscoe.

And the USS Briscoe you mentioned. So that was the Navy ship that where they. Where the family had the service for JFK Jr. Carolyn and Lauren Bissette. But there was a Coast Guard cutter, correct, that brought the ashes from Woods Hole to the Briscoe?

Yes. I just want to frame this from beginning to end. This entire operation was just five days, 120 hours that notionally was broken into three pieces. 40 hours of rescue effort, 40 hours of recovery effort, and another 40 hours of planning and final effort to place the ashes respectfully over the site of the plane crash. So this is a very intense operation for five days where we were looking, finding and respectfully placing the ashes at sea. And yes, I was on the cutter that brought the ashes, the chaplain and some of the family members out. And there were a number of Coast Guard assets that helped bring the family out to the accommodation ladder on the Briscoe, along with the Navy band.

Oh, the Navy band as well. And I remember. I remember being there. I remember, you know, watching it from a distance. What was it like in your career, and you had a long career at the Coast Guard. What was it like when the cutter took off, the Sanibel took off from Woods Hole, and you're with the family there and you're in the position as a commander, you're the leader, you know, on that cutter. What were you thinking and just what was that moment like for you?

Well, first of all, it's surreal. I had. I am from New England and there was obviously some personal motivations and feelings about working with the family because the Kennedy family, beginning with Jack Kennedy and the brothers, the father had always been a staple fixture around that area, my area. We'd rendered the Coast Guard rendered assistance to some of them at times. Every Mariner knows you need help sooner or later and that help is extended to current politicians and former politicians who reside in New England. What was it like? Honestly, it was surreal for me because one of the mistakes I made that I fixed the next time we had a major operation which was when Egypt Air 990 crash about three months later. I hadn't slept in two and a half days and I was pretty, pretty exhausted. So for me it was doubly surreal as the commander of the water forces. And for me it was just. It was exhausting, it was exhilarating and it was extremely sad at the same moment.

Yeah, well said. I can't imagine. And when you brought up the Egypt Air plane crash in the months afterwards, it's so interesting to look back in that time frame, the late 90s to 911 when you had TWA and JFK Jr and Egypt Air and then leading up to 911 those were such. And the OJ Simpson case as well, that obviously is a nautical. But still captured the nation's attention. These huge stories and ones just from a federal response point of view were big news back then and they just took over the airwaves and everybody followed it. And these stories were a lot longer in span, I think because so much of it was. Was televised. But now it's so different. Like do you look at the difference in terms of how these events happen? You know, compare it to back then and what happens now? It's. Are the events smaller in scope or is it how we transmit the messaging that's that's changed? Like, do you notice a difference?

Yeah, I notice a stark difference. I think. I think the individual member of the public is now much more able not only to follow what's going on, but to be part of the story.

Ah yes.

Given the level of technology, I'll give you an example. If something horrific like the JFK junior Crash had occurred today, every one of those people working tirelessly on Philbin beach to help the 26 agencies involved, the vast majority of them would have taken video, they would have posted clips and it would have been a much. I think the Coverage would have been much, much better. Certainly more intrusive, if that's an appropriate word to use.

Well, what do you mean by much better? What do you mean by that we would get to the truth quicker?

Well, I think it's the difference between modern day crowdsourcing where you're able to even in a disaster. In the business I'm now in, the media plans these days are essentially monitoring the news that's being made by the, by the average citizen in the field who is often ahead of the name brand media. And that's to me one of the major differences now is the ability of the general public to not only be a witness, but a participant to the development of the news story. And as intrusively as the 1999 cases were covered by the media, I think I would put a number and say it would be a hundred times more intrusive and better in terms of the different angles and perspectives. I'll give you one example. There were people who volunteered out of the goodness of their heart to patrol the beaches to find things that were known to wash ashore. And some of them became part of the problem because they exhausted themselves and they required medical, first aid. And I think knowing that every one of them would be capable of filming their vignette, their part of the story, it would have not only made for a more complete story about the volunteerism that took place, but it would have also, I think dominated the news and spread the news out away from the main feature of the story, the people, the three people who were on that airplane.

Yeah, Russ, I think you captured the good and the bad of media coverage in these big events as they play out now that back then the public could be considered for the most part the mass public, the hoi polloi, they were more, you know, intrusive or they were in the way and they were trying to, you know, they were trying to insert themselves in the story.

Perhaps.

And maybe the media was a little more rabid in their efforts to report on the story. But nowadays, and you pointed out crowdsourcing, it's a way to bring more information instead of looking at the public as intrusive, that they also can be subject matter experts or that are bringing information that and shedding information and shedding light on information that other people wouldn't have. So a double edged sword, there's good and bad.

Yeah, exactly. And I haven't even talked about drones that are now can be very positive and also a challenge for rescue operations or being able to map out certain things and get to Places that even the media couldn't get to or places they shouldn't be in. So.

Oh, could you imagine drones if this happened now? Oh, my goodness, no. Oh, my gosh. The Coast Guard would be dealing with that as well. Just as someone who was a bystander, pretty close bystander, but a bystander nonetheless. The Coast Guard did amazing efforts, you know, through that search. And it was such a condensed time frame when that did happen. It was such a short period of time. And your work was stellar then. And everyone working in the Coast Guard did amazing work. But if you were to look at it, you were the commander, so you were a leader. Were there any lessons that you learned? You had touched on the fact that you would have let yourself have more rest, you know, to prepare and just be, you know, reinvigorated for challenges in an emergency. But were there any other lessons that you learned from a leadership perspective in managing operation to that magnitude that would help you, whether it's a large scale event or a small one that you maybe apply to your job today? Still working with the federal government?

Yeah, absolutely. Probably the seminal lesson, Molly, is that nobody is ready for one of these Black Swan events that you can even imagine what was critical, I think, to our success as an agency and the other agencies involved, you know, Mass Environmental, Police, noaa, Navy, and the many other agencies that made this a unified effort. We had been planning together, the majority of us, with the exception of the Navy and noaa, for a year and a half prior to the JFK junior Crash. And even before I got there, we were planning for high capacity passenger vessel tragedy at sea where one of the steamship ferries got into trouble and we needed to account for people, move them off of one ferry or a sinking ferry, and move them to critical care facilities and accounting locations. And that preparation, I think, was the critical factor in us having a pre wired, pre identified, unified command post at the Coast Guard air station. And we were ready for an at sea calamity. It just wasn't a steamship ferry with 1500 people that was in trouble. It was three people who were of national interest who crashed in a small plane seven miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard. So that for me was the biggest lesson. You don't have to be ready for the exact type of Black Swan you're approaching. You have to be ready for a complex operation. And that will cover about 70% of your needs.

Oh, okay, so, and that's a good point. So the Black Swan event, also known as the unknown unknowns event, where you can Never truly plan for it, but if you have planning for some type of large scale event or just events in general, that you'll be well positioned to be able to manage it.

Yeah, there were a couple things at the time the Coast Guard was struggling with having enough senior people who are watch standers versus having enough junior people. And we learned the hard way because we had a fatigue study ongoing at the time that our radio watch standards who were in a 12 hour watch and a our group duty officers who were the senior operational decision making elements. We're in a 24 hour watch and we learned pretty quickly that you should not have anyone standing more than 12 hours of watch at a time. The folks in the radio room transitioned from the normal busy summer operations to the incredibly insane busy the aftermath of the plane crash without trouble. Whereas the group duty officers who are in a 24 hour watch really, really struggled and ended up in their red zone fatigues, fatigue zone. And policy changed after that to give us more people, more senior decision making people. The other piece which was a national lesson learned had to do with a regional incident commander, national incident commander concept whereby a lonely group commander like myself could be more efficiently augmented in the incident command system by having a pre designated and staff regional or national incident command center staff that does things like the media, the political interventions and resource brokering from other groups and other agencies to help. That was an abject lesson learned that got fixed fairly quickly after the JFK Jr. Case.

That's a good lesson to not forget your staff and the well being of your staff. And I find just in my work with crisis management and doing trainings and speaking that this idea of your employee stakeholder and taking care of them has become a lot more important than it was back in the day. You know, leaders are recognizing that they need to be mindful of events and how they impact their employees as well and their families. I know if anyone wants to find out more information about you because you are a US Coast Guard historian and author and you have some published books out there, correct?

Yeah, I have a new book that was published in 2019. My focus is on contemporary rescue cases and I wrote a book called Lost in Charleston Wave that is available on my website. And I'm currently working on a book Finding America's son about the JFK Jr. Case. And if anybody's listening out there, I'm looking for an agent.

Oh, you are. Okay now. So you're writing a book about the JFK Jr. Case. Did you uncover anything that you had forgotten or in your Research anything that you didn't know that you learned from writing the book?

Absolutely. I have some close friends at NOAA who and the Navy who've been very helpful in providing me information. And the book is just again focused on those five days of intensive effort and a behind the scenes look of government operations and decisions. Yeah. My friends at NOAA as an example have come up with one of kind type of charting and a narrative about how close we came to to not finding JFK Jr. S plane and the professionalism and persistence of their people in making sure we did. So there are some wonderful behind the scenes stories about their operations as well as the Navy operations and a few not so funny things that happened during the operation that are a real life exposure of humanity.

Well, I have to ask you, when you said that how they almost didn't find the wreckage, was it only because of the technology that NOAA provided that they were able to find it? That if they didn't have that it would have been possible that the wreckage would never have been found?

Keep in mind the airplane is incredibly small. It's a needle within a haystack within a field of haystacks when it's sitting on the bottom. Depending on the aspect of the airplane and in the case of this particular aircraft, its perspective, its angle was such that only through the persistence of one person who saw this very tiny reflection from the sonar technology, side scan tonar technology at the time, which is also gone through its revolution, only through the persistence of this one individual were the people who were searching under the underwater able to go back and look at something that most people had dismissed which eventually ended up being the airport.

Was it someone from noaa?

Yes.

Oh, that's interesting. And so at that time no one really knew per se, like what would you say like the true search area was where they suspected that the plane was there. Was it much larger than we now know or was it much smaller?

I would say most people were not aware that the search area was oh I'll call it five by five miles. And I think most people thought it was much larger than that. And the the hind cast picture again put it in a mile and a half around the actual location where the plane was found. So I would say that most people were unaware of how A how difficult it is to find anything on the bottom and B even within a relatively small 25 mile square search area. I think the technology which is resident in Woods Hole right now is such that they're using these autonomous pre programmed torpedo like sonar devices that are so sophisticated that they can navigate down underwater tunnels that are filled with water in the water supply system and map and chart the internal piping and waterways for 40 or 50 miles and then pop up on the distant end at an outflow point and basically allow you to change the batteries and recover the data, put new batteries in, put in new programming, and then send the underwater search side scan device back on its way for mission number two. Back in 99, you had the original side scan sonar technology that Harold Edgerton from MIT had created, and it had to be drugged behind Coast Guard buoy tender and two NOAA vessels and physically recovered and, you know, put, put back out there after a much more laborious process. I think today's devices are much more independent. They're quicker to recover the data, and the quality of the data is greatly enhanced. So I have no doubt that it would have taken some metric less time to find the airplane.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Russ, for the time to speak with me and my listeners about your experience with the JFK Jr plane crash, the tragic plane crash that took the lives of John F. Kennedy, Jr. His wife Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bissette. For more information, people can find you at your website, wrussellwebster.com where they can read a lot of your work on history of these stories that have happened with the Coast Guard and of course, your upcoming book about JFK Jr. Well.

Thank you very much, Molly. It's, it's been fun. I appreciate it.

Okay, well, thank you so much, Captain Webster, and thank you for all of Your service, your 26 years of service with the Coast Guard, and as you Continue on with FEMA.

All right, thanks again, Molly.

20 years after the death of JFK Jr. And his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and sister in law Lauren Bissette, the public's interest is still so strong, but I believe that event was a true black swan event that we won't ever see the likes of. Again, my sincere gratitude to my guest, Captain W. Russell Webster, U.S. coast Guard, retired, for joining me on this episode of the podcast. You can find out more information about Russ Webster and his work as a U.S. coast Guard historian on his website at wrussell webster.com SAM.