Jfk Jr. Missing; Plane Debris Found -- Wife, Her Sister Also On Board

AQUINNAH, Mass. - Hope dimmed late yesterday for John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and sister-in-law, as darkness descended on the waters off Martha's Vineyard where their plane went down. Debris washed ashore, but there was no sign of life.

The couple had been en route to Cape Cod and a cousin's wedding at Hyannis Port. The wedding was postponed and replaced with prayers for the missing.

The 38-year-old Kennedy had obtained his pilot's license last year.

"I can tell you miraculous stories of people surviving," said Rear Adm. Richard Larrabee, first Coast Guard district commander, at a news conference. "I can tell you in previous cases like this, we've searched as many as three or four days. We're not ready to give up on this yet."

But the daylong search by planes, helicopters and boats yielded little but some fragments of Kennedy's red-and-white plane, a prescription bottle belonging to his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and a piece of baggage bearing the name of his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette.

While the visual aerial search was suspended for the night, two Coast Guard boats with bright surface lights and a sonar-equipped boat from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration continued searching overnight in the dark, officials said.

Two Coast Guard helicopters and an Air National Guard helicopter, all with infrared radar equipment, and an Air National Guard C-130 airplane were grounded early this morning because of low haze, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Todd Burgun.

Massachusetts State Police Capt. Robert Bird said the infrared sensors would allow searchers to detect differences between the water and a body or person in the water.

A Coast Guard official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said searchers on the water hoped they might see an emergency beacon or search light in the darkness, or rescue ships might turn off their engines and hear faint distress calls.

The Kennedys had been en route to Cape Cod and a Kennedy cousin's wedding at Hyannis Port. The wedding was postponed.

At Philbin Beach in Aquinnah, luggage, a wheel, a headrest and part of a strut - a plane support - had washed up, said Coast Guard Lt. Craig Jaramillo.

Lt. Col. Richard Stanley of the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary said other searchers had discovered pieces of landing gear, part of a rubber pedal apparatus and pieces of seat.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration sent a submersible craft to aid in the search, and it began its work last night, using sonar to look for wreckage.

Erin McCarthy, 31, of Boston, saw the luggage in the water. She persuaded her friend Damon Seligson, 30, to pull it in. They found a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter business card inside the bag that read: "Lauren Bessette, Vice President."

"It was kind of like, `Oh God.' It seemed like it would be pretty bad news. Everyone was shaking," said McCarthy. They called 911 on a cellular phone and about 30 minutes later, a policeman showed up to take the bag.

Later, police showed up to remove about 200 sunbathers from the 1-mile stretch of beach.

Federal authorities insisted yesterday that they treated the hunt for the Kennedy plane as they would the search for any missing aircraft.

They said the armada of boats and covey of planes, and the small army of pilots, Coast Guard officers, Air Force reservists and volunteers enlisted to operate them, would be deployed for any search and rescue effort that required them.

"We treat all searches the same - there's no difference between a celebrity and a noncelebrity," said Lt. Col. Steve Roark, director of the Air Force National Search and Rescue School.

The FAA reported the last contact with the plane during its final approach to the airport on the island off Cape Cod at 9:39 p.m. EDT, the Coast Guard said. "The aircraft was due to arrive at Martha's Vineyard around 10 p.m. and was later expected to fly to Hyannis Port," the statement said.

No flight plan had been filed, and none was required.

Family members were assembled in Hyannis Port for the wedding of the late Robert F. Kennedy's daughter Rory. A family friend reported the plane missing to the Coast Guard about 2:15 a.m. EDT yesterday.

The Coast Guard immediately began searching for the plane and contacted FAA officials, who in turn alerted rescue personnel at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, which is in charge of searching for overdue planes. At 3:30 a.m., the Air Force got a "positive hit" on an emergency signal emanating from northern Long Island, said Larrabee.

Rescuers searched that area for three hours, but found nothing, he said. At 7:30 a.m. EDT yesterday, the Coast Guard launched an aggressive search of the area around Martha's Vineyard and Montauk, N.Y.

Later in the morning, the search area was narrowed significantly when officials reviewed radar records and found the plane's last known location was about 17 miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard.

Eddie Martin, of Hyannis Port, a friend of the family, said the plane was stopping in Martha's Vineyard to drop off Lauren Bessette, before Kennedy and his wife continued on to Hyannis Port.

A man who was fishing on Friday night off Squibnocket, a rock formation on the southern shore of Martha's Vineyard, told police yesterday that he saw a small airplane flying several miles off shore between 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m on Friday. The man said the plane was flying extremely low, perhaps 40 feet over the water.

The Coast Guard identified Kennedy's plane as a single-engine, six-seat Piper Saratoga II HP.

The plane's disappearance came one day before the 30th anniversary of the Chappaquiddick incident in which Sen. Edward Kennedy's car went off a bridge, killing passenger Mary Jo Kopechne on a tiny island adjacent to Martha's Vineyard. Edward Kennedy didn't report the incident for 10 hours and later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident.

It was also three years after the crash on July 17, 1996, of a Paris-bound TWA jet off the south shore of Long Island, and 35 years after Ted Kennedy narrowly escaped death in a private plane crash in which he suffered a broken back.

Kennedy's sister, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, was on a rafting trip in the West, according to CNN. She is the only other survivor of the young family that transfixed the world, four decades ago.

Kennedy's disappearance sent a shudder across the country. The Chicago Sun-Times printed an extra edition of its Sunday paper with the news; in New York, at Yankee Stadium, fans were asked to rise for a moment of silent prayer.

Once an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, Kennedy more recently attracted attention with his political magazine, George.

One of his few private moments was his Sept. 21, 1996, wedding to Bessette Kennedy, a former publicist for fashion designer Calvin Klein. They were wed in an ultraprivate ceremony on a small island off the coast of Georgia, free of hovering helicopters and paparazzi.

Bessette Kennedy, 34, studied at Boston University before taking the public-relations job in New York.

Lauren Bessette, who is 18 months older than Carolyn, has a twin sister, Lisa Ann. Lauren worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in New York City.

Material from the New York Daily News and The New York Times is included in this report.