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U.S. Blocks Access to JFK Jr.'s Last Recorded Words
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ShareFebruary 07, 2007 11:34 AM
The federal government has declined to release the last recorded words of John F. Kennedy Jr., seven years after ABC News requested to hear them.
Citing the privacy concerns of the Kennedy family, the U.S. Department of Transportation informed ABC News in a Jan. 27 letter it would not release the tape, a recording of a radio conversation between an air traffic controller at New Jersey's Essex County Airport and Kennedy.
The agency agreed to release a transcript of the recording, a brief exchange of flight lingo between Kennedy and the airport controller. "Five three november to two two thanks," reads Kennedy's final known transmitted words, confirming the controller's direction to use a particular runway for takeoff.
"I apologize for the delay in responding to your request," the responding official wrote ABC News. She gave no further explanation.
A search for recordings between Kennedy and controllers at a second airport closer to the crash site turned up nothing, according to the government's letter.
Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage.
ABC News made its request July 19, 1999, three days after JFK Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, had taken off in a private plane from Essex with Carolyn's sister Lauren. The couple had planned to drop Lauren off at Martha's Vineyard, Mass., before continuing on to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port for a wedding.
A post-crash inquiry concluded that a little more than an hour after takeoff, Kennedy's single-engine Piper Saratoga fell twisting through a moonless haze and crashed into the Atlantic.
Then 38 and the last male heir to the legacy of former president John F. Kennedy, JFK Jr.'s tragic death sparked a worldwide frenzy. "Leave the Kennedys Alone," read the headline of one New York newspaper. Crowds outside the Manhattan mass for the late Kennedy couple forced the city to close a wide swath of the Upper East Side.
In the government's response to ABC News' Freedom of Information Act request from the time, it noted the "strong privacy interest for the Kennedy family" as its reason for denying access to an audio copy of the Kennedy heir's final recorded moments. "The privacy interest is not outweighed by any qualifying public interest in disclosure."
The government granted ABC News' request for post-crash conversations between an intern at the Martha's Vineyard airport and an Federal Aviation Administration employee discussing JFK Jr.'s missing plane, hours after it was expected to land. Listen to that conversation here.
February 7, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (5)
Since ABC news was so quick to file a FOIA request in this case, which does not impact the vast majority of Americans, I would really like to know how many FOIAs
ABC has filed regarding discrepancies in the "official record" of the events of September 11, 2001.
It seems to me none of the FOIA records and transcripts I have seen from the Air Force, NTSB and FAA in this greatest of all news events was released in response to any news media requests. It is non-media
organizations, like Judicial Watch and the National Security Archive and private individuals who have been doing all the "investigative reporting" on the 9/11 attacks.
Posted by: rex | Feb 7, 2007 5:26:53 PM
I would like to find out why the NTSB and FBI sequestered all photos and analysis of the aircraft after it was found. The inital report of a convex type of deformity in the fuselage that indicates a high pressure pulse from the baggage area was initally stated from an eye witness. All wreckage was covertly removed as well.
Posted by: Jeff Smathers | Feb 12, 2007 4:49:29 PM
It only goes to show you that rich has it Privileges!
Posted by: Don R(EX-MASS) | Feb 12, 2007 9:06:14 PM
To all 9/11 conspiracy theorists: attacks against American interests are not a dream. Does that mean Bush coordinated all the attacks in the 90's, too?
What country attacks itself only to get into a war in a foreign country and then "lose" that war?
If Bush and company are so cutthroat and diabolical as to execute an attack as horrific and evil as 9/11 on its own people, only to invade Iraq, then not even carpet bomb the entire country into submission and steal their oil, why do it at all?
Why would they? To extricate oil from Iraq? Why not invade Venezuela then?
Why not assassinate key environmentalists, lobbyists and Congressmen who oppose domestic oil drilling in order to pass widespread drilling projects here at home?
Why not just simply issue a Presidential War Powers Act and order more oil drilling, more refineries be built, more tankers be let out to sea, more oil subsidiaries granted, more government exploration projects into off shore drilling in Texas, California and other gulf states?
Why not issue executive orders to drill in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado?
Why not do all those things? That seems easier than going to Iraq and getting involved in something that risky if in fact your goal is to "steal" oil or make money for your "buddies" in the oil business.
I mean, that's if you are so diabolical and heartless as to intentionally conspire to fly planes into the World Trade Center and blame it on terrorism.
Posted by: Robert | Feb 13, 2007 7:13:13 PM
Posted by: Don R(EX-MASS) | Feb 12, 2007 9:06:14 PM
"What country attacks itself only to get into a war in a foreign country and then "lose" that war?"
Let's see... Germany, Britian, Russia, America just to name a few. It isn't the COUNTRY that does it, it is those corrupted individuals we trust to represent the country. America is my COUNTRY, not the Government.
And further when they DO do the things you list later on in your "why not" list, what excuses will you offer then? And you and people LIKE you will be making excuses, trust me!
Posted by: Nobody | Feb 14, 2007 8:59:40 AM
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