A medical transport plane with the call sign Heartbeat 104 crashed this Oct. 3, some 20 miles off the coast of Nantucket, carrying six passengers. The tragedy took all six lives, and as we learned from the National Transportation Safety Board, it was one of 31 fatal civil aviation accidents in Massachusetts between 2008 and 2024, including two off Martha’s Vineyard.
For the Island, the fatal crash stirred memories of those lost in those two other flights, and of course it brought forward the searing memory of July 16, 1999. That was when John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, were killed in a horrific crash that landed about seven miles off the southwest coast of Martha’s Vineyard.
For myself and many Islanders, the Nantucket crash last month hit us all on a deep level, and I knew I wanted to visit the quiet stretch of beach off Squibnocket where the remains of JFK Jr.’s plane had washed ashore.
And so I set out to navigate the past as a way to move forward into the present. I was The MVTimes features editor back in 1999. And now I have returned to work with The MVTimes once again, and so this walk was a full-circle moment in some ways, and one that was deeply personal, a connection to a story I could never forget.
That summer of 1999 was a very busy one for news, and my brain was toasted even before the crash of the Kennedy plane became front-page news around the world.
JFK Jr., his wife Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, were on their way to the wedding of their cousin, Rory Kennedy, scheduled for the following day at the family compound in Hyannis Port on the Cape. An exhaustive search ensued to find them, or remains of the plane. Those efforts ended on Wednesday, July 21, as Navy divers recovered the bodies of the three.
Those were nightmarish days that left Islanders, whether they knew the family or not, in a state of trauma, one that lasted for a long time.
The international media descended on the Island like locusts. Respectfully, that was their job. Our small office on State Road became a de facto temporary headquarters for reporters, photographers, and TV film crews. They were asking anyone who they thought had the slightest knowledge or sense of things.
Radio Tel Aviv called our office. I happened to pick up.
“What’s the mood there?” the reporter asked.
What do you say in a live interview, yourself in a deeply dark mood, to people 5,500 miles away about the outsize impact of this tragedy on our small Island community, the way it echoed across a nation that had seen so many Kennedy family tragedies? How do you explain that the Island community saw itself as a kind of protectorate that sought to offer the Kennedy family some privacy amid the cloud of tragedy and scandal that had kept them thrust into the national spotlight? What is the mood, the reporter wanted to know? The only word I could come up with for an answer was, “Grim.”
It seemed to fall far short, especially since the most poignant and ironic part of the tragedy was still unfolding. The remains of the plane and its passengers were found floating toward the Aquinnah compound which Jackie Kennedy Onassis had bought in 1978 as a private oasis for her and her two children, to shield them from the harsh spotlight on the more well-known Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port.
The property was purposefully so private you could drive by the entrance on Moshup Trail and never see it, nor know who lived down the long windy dirt road. I was one of those people, both curious and intrigued. There were overhead shots of the compound, but they hardly sufficed. What stayed in my mind for all those years had been the pristine mile of private beach and a blue splotch called Squibnocket Pond. But images from that tragic crash had tarnished the picture in my mind’s eye.
Which is why I chose to visit that place, to try to see that stretch of beach with the clarity and distance of time, and perhaps to wash away those memories.
Luckily for the rest of us, the Kennedy family has generously made the land open to the public. Caroline Kennedy took after her mother, and rather than sell the estate to the highest bidder, and there were many, she sold it for something like half its market value to the Vineyard’s Land Bank and Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation. What was once Red Gate Farm is now the Squibnocket Pond Reservation, which opened to the public in June 2025 after an interminably long state review and permitting ordeal.
I entered Squibnocket Pond South from Moshup Trail. One needs to make an online vehicle parking reservation (still available through Oct. 31) via the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation or the Land Bank websites. In my haste to get up there, I didn’t think ahead, but a nice woman at the entrance booth let me in because it was late afternoon, and late season. Parking is free but limited. Walkers and cyclists don’t need a reservation.
The path down to the pond is now made easier with wooden trails, mostly to protect the habitat on either side. Those trails also protect walkers from being bit by dreaded lone star ticks.
As I walked approximately one mile to the breathtaking beach, I was struck by what is just as impressive in this preservation effort: the thicket of bushes, shrubs, and small trees. I felt like I was deep in the Sherwood Forest I imagined from watching old Robin Hood films. The growth was dense, and a vital habitat to 34 rare or endangered species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds — so many birds.
The beach was starkly beautiful, and almost desolate. Yes, it is a miracle on any Island where so many people summer — no signs of mankind, just pure, unadulterated white sand. Yet witnessing it up close did wash away the bad vibes I had associated with it. But it was the whole totality of the reservation and the exquisite attention paid to opening it to the public, with integrity and respect to what the Kennedy family envisioned for it, that brought me solace and hope.
Squibnocket Pond Reservation will close for the season on Oct. 31. Make a parking reservation at mvlandbank.com/properties/squibnocket-pond-reservation.
