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July 17, 1999
Web posted at: 6:12 p.m. EDT (2212 GMT)

In this story: Kennedy, wife on way to family wedding Military, civilian crews join search Plane equipped with emergency beacon Kennedys married in 1996 RELATED STORIES, SITES

BOSTON (CNN) -- The search for a missing plane carrying John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and sister-in-law has narrowed to an area off of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, where debris from the plane was found early Saturday afternoon.

A piece of luggage bearing the name of Lauren Bessette, Kennedy's sister-in-law, was found on Philbin Beach near Aquinnah, Massachusetts, said Coast Guard Capt. W. Russell Webster.

Rear Adm. Richard Larrabee, the Coast Guard's first district commander, said that debris from the plane was spotted 100 yards off the Martha Vineyard shore.

A Massachusetts State Police dive team was being brought into the area to aid in the search.

Kennedy's single-engine Piper Saratoga II failed to arrive Friday night at an airport on Martha's Vineyard, triggering a search by the U.S. Air Force, Coast Guard and Civil Air Patrol.

U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Todd Bergen said the single-engine, six-passenger plane took off just after 8:30 p.m. EDT from Fairfield, New Jersey, and was expected on Martha's Vineyard before continuing to Hyannisport, on Cape Cod.

Bergen said the plane was last heard from about an hour after takeoff as it made its final approach into Martha's Vineyard.

Kennedy, wife on way to family wedding

Kennedy, founder of George magazine and the son of the assassinated president and the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, was traveling to Hyannisport to attend a family wedding.

Rory Elizabeth Kennedy, the youngest child of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was to marry book publisher Mark Bailey Saturday evening. The wedding was canceled, and a somber mood descended on the Kennedy family compound in Hyannisport, where many family members gathered to wait for news.

"This is a real tragedy," family friend Rowland Evans told CNN. "The Kennedys have a habit of gathering around in an extraordinary way in a situation like this."

Family members notified the Federal Aviation Administration that the plane had not arrived at the Massachusetts resort as expected Friday night, agency officials said.

Military, civilian crews join search

Residents of Martha's Vineyard gather outside the Kennedy compound

Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Dennis Hall said the search was focused on an area 5 to 10 miles off Aquinnah, formerly Gay Head, on the western tip of Martha's Vineyard.

Ironically, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis owned a estate in the Aquinnah area that she left to her son and his sister, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, when she died in 1994.

Schlossberg is not at the family compound. She is on a rafting trip at an unidentified location in the West.

The man who found Bessette's suitcase on Philbin Beach told CNN Boston affiliate WBZ that the case contained a hair dryer and other personal items, as well as a business card with her name on it.

"I dragged (the suitcase) out of the water," he said. "Everyone was very, very upset. We pulled it up, we put it where we were sitting and we called the police."

Plane equipped with emergency beacon

The overall search effort was being coordinated by the Air Force's Joint Rescue Coordination Center at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, Air Force public affairs officer Sandy Troeber said.

Troeber said that searchers heard what they thought was a locator beacon off Long Island early Saturday, but they found nothing when they arrived on the site where the beacon appeared to originate. Officials now do not believe the beacon was connected with the missing Kennedy plane.

Officials at the plane's manufacturer, New Piper Aircraft, Inc. in Vero Beach, Florida, confirmed that the plane was equipped with an emergency beacon that should have gone off at impact. However, they said the signal would likely not have been detectable if the device sank in the ocean.

The plane, like other general aviation aircraft, did not contain the data flight recorders that are required in commercial planes.

Residents near the Kennedy compound put out yellow ribbons, symbols of hope

Weather conditions along what would have been the plane's flight path were quiet overnight, with light clouds, light wind and some haze. Conditions remained calm Saturday morning.

Kennedy had not filed a flight plan, but aviation regulations did not require him to file one. He earned his pilot's license last year.

Chuck Suma, president of New Piper, said Kennedy had trained on a similar, though slightly smaller and less powerful, aircraft. He had also taken a tour of Piper factory during his training, Suma said.

Kennedy bought the used Piper Saratoga in April, Suma said. The plane, which sells for $325,000 to $350,000 new, was manufactured in June 1995. More than 7,500 of the planes are in service worldwide, he said.

Kennedys married in 1996

Kennedy and his wife, a former publicist for fashion designer Calvin Klein, married in 1996 on Georgia's Cumberland Island.

He has eschewed the family tradition of politics, launching George in 1995 after a brief legal career that included a stint as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan.

The string of tragedies that have befallen the Kennedy family include several air disasters. John F. Kennedy's brother, Joe, was shot down in a plane during World War II, and another sister, Kathleen, died in a crash a few years later. Sen. Edward Kennedy, the brother of the slain president, was seriously injured in a crash in 1964.

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