| By
GORDON I. PETERSON, Senior Editor
The nation's sea
services were among numerous federal, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and
civilian organizations honored at an awards ceremony in Boston on 30 July
for their actions in the successful recovery of the crash victims and
wreckage of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s private aircraft. Secretary of
Transportation Rodney E. Slater and Coast Guard Commandant Adm. James M.
Loy praised all participants in the multiagency operation for their poise
and professionalism.
"We are
gathered here today," Slater said, "to thank some extraordinary
men and women for helping bring closure to a tragedy that riveted the
attention of millions, bringing normal life to a halt in countless
households in America and around the world." Slater awarded the Coast
Guard Unit Commendation to uniformed personnel from the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Navy, the Coast Guard, and the
Air Force. Civilians received Coast Guard Public Service Commendations.
The smooth and
highly professional recovery operation belies: (a) the complexity of
organizing and directing such a large, multiagency effort, particularly
one carried out with no warning; and (b) the technical demands and hazards
associated with deep-water recovery operations.
Following the
initial report on the missing aircraft during the early morning hours of
17 July, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Coast Guard
faced a daunting search-and-rescue challenge. With no recorded radio
communications with the aircraft and no instrument flight plan or
eyewitnesses to the crash, the area that would have to be searched for
possible survivors could have extended to more than 9,000 square miles of
Long Island Sound and the waters off Martha's Vineyard.
Search-and-rescue
platforms, personnel, and a time-proven command-and-control structure
quickly fell into place. Within hours, in accordance with a regional
Passenger Vessel Risk Management Work Group agreement developed over a
nine-month span, Capt. Peter Popko, the Coast Guard captain of the port in
Providence, R.I., organized a unified command post at Cape Cod's Otis Air
Base. Robert Pierce, of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
and Capt. Russell Webster, commander of Coast Guard Group Woods Hole,
Mass., directed search operations from Otis. NTSB Chairman James Hall and
Rear Adm. Richard M. Larrabee, First Coast Guard District commander,
served as overall operational coordinators and spokesmen.
NOAA's Capt.
Nicholas Perugini, a veteran of the 1996 TWA Flight 800 recovery
operation, was impressed. "I can't say enough about the Coast Guard's
ability to put all these federal agencies in one room, assess each of
their capabilities, come up with a game plan, and execute it." It
was, literally, a "no-huddle" offense.
Ground-search
teams, composed largely of civilian volunteers and the Massachusetts State
Police, soon retrieved flotsam from the lost Piper Saratoga II HP aircraft
along the shoreline of Martha's Vineyard. Coast Guard patrol craft,
cutters, C-130 aircraft, and helicopters mobilized to join the search for
survivors. But by Sunday, 19 July, authorities reluctantly announced that
Kennedy, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and Lauren Bessette were presumed dead.
The search for the aircraft's wreckage and the remains of the deceased
continued, however.
The initial
search area was substantially narrowed to a 24-square-mile grid following
NTSB and FAA evaluation of recorded radar data and NOAA's "Hindcast"
reverse analysis of the location and time of the accident, adjusted to
compensate for the prevailing tide and current. NOAA's hydrographic survey
ships Rude and Whiting and the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Willow employed
side-scanning sonar to plot likely debris fields on the ocean's bottom.
"This was not an operation that any one organization could have
pulled off--by any stretch of the imagination," Webster told Sea
Power.
The Navy's
supervisor of salvage and diving, Capt. Bert Marsh, provided technical
assistance during the underwater search-and-recovery phase. On 20 July the
Navy's rescue and salvage ship USS Grasp--also a veteran of the massive
TWA Flight 800 recovery operation--successfully located the Piper wreckage
at a depth of 112 feet using a self-propelled MR-2 mini-ROV
(remote-operated vehicle) equipped with still-photographic and live-video
cameras. Navy divers, wearing Mk21 surface-supply diving systems,
successfully retrieved the remains of the victims from the 52-degree water
the following day. At the request of the Kennedy and Bessette families, a
private burial-at-sea ceremony was carried out by the Spruance-class
destroyer USS Briscoe on 22 July in the waters close to where the aircraft
crashed, nearly eight miles off Martha's Vineyard. The aircraft's
shattered fuselage also was retrieved by Grasp and returned to Otis Air
Base, where the NTSB is continuing its investigation into the cause of the
accident.
The Coast Guard
received nearly 500 congratulatory letters and e-mail messages praising
the men and women involved in the successful six-day search-and-recovery
operation. In her note to the search team and the divers, Joanne J.
Pierce, of Bakersfield, Calif., expressed a sentiment shared by millions.
"As the nation was watching," she wrote, "your work did you
proud."
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