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Kennedy had to keep his attention elsewhere, and after a while, what he was seeing could not have pleased him. The haze that surrounded his plane as he first climbed into the sky did not disperse, largely obscuring the fingernail paring of a moon that was out that evening. Stars were probably erased completely. Up and down the New England coast, other pilots began flying into the same soup. A number of them radioed the FAA for permission to land at alternative, inland airports, where visibility was better. But Kennedy, who never made radio contact throughout the trip, pressed on. Below his right wing, he may have seen the eastern tip of Long Island slipping past.
At 9:26 p.m., 48 min. after takeoff, things got dicier. By this point in Kennedy's flight path, the lights of Westerly, R.I., would ordinarily have been visible to the left, and the porkchop-shaped outline of Block Island should have been off to the right. Kennedy banked the plane, quickly passed the island and found himself, at last, over utterly open ocean. It was at this moment, according to radar records, that the plane, which had been holding steady at 5,600 ft., suddenly began to descend at about 700 ft. per min. That's not emergency speed for this single-engine aircraft, but it is quicker than normal.
It's unclear why the plane was descending so quickly, but Kennedy may have been trying to drop below the haze. For nearly five minutes, the plane's descent continued at this relatively steep rate, losing about two-thirds of its altitude until it was just 2,300 ft. above the Atlantic wavetops. Martha's Vineyard was by now only 20 miles away, but if the Piper kept dropping at this rate, it would hit ocean well before it reached the landing strip. For a pilot flying in better conditions--even an inexperienced pilot--the next step would be obvious: look out your window, get your bearings and level out your plane. J.F.K. Jr. didn't have that option. No matter how low he flew, there was still haze.
Kennedy, who had earned his pilot's license only 15 months ago, now found himself flying a plane that might as well have had no windows at all. The first rule pilots are taught in a vertiginous situation like this is to ignore the signals your body is trying to send. The inner ear is equipped with an exquisitely well-tuned balance mechanism, but it's a mechanism that's meant to operate with the help of other cues, particularly visual ones. Without that, the balance system spins like an unmoored gyroscope.