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Ann Freeman, the mom of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Lauren Bessette, had a mother’s intuition when it came to her two daughters stepping onto an aircraft piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr.

She always told the son of the president John F. Kennedy to never fly with both of her daughters at the same time.  

But both Carolyn, 33, and Lauren, 34, were on board his plane when it plunged into the Atlantic on July 16, 1999, killing them and JFK Jnr.

They were supposedly flying to Martha’s Vineyard first to drop off Lauren, before continuing on to Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, to attend the wedding of John’s cousin Rory the next day.

And Carolyn’s mother warned them both about boarding his small Piper Saratoga in 1999, according to a new book, JFK Jr: An Intimate Oral Biography, written by PEOPLE’s editor-at-large Liz McNeil and RoseMarie Terenzio. 

John F. Kennedy, Jr. and wife Carolyn at the annual White House Correspondents dinner in May 1999 – two months before they died

‘She was panic-stricken,’ RoseMarie wrote of the grieving mother in the book. 

‘She said something like, “I told him never to take two of my girls up at the same time.”‘

The author said Ann was ‘angry’ after her daughters’ deaths.

‘Crying. It was panic, shock. Disbelief,’ she recalled.

Even though it was an inexperienced 38-year-old pilot at the controls of a complicated plane, Carolyn is often blamed for the accident.

In the aftermath of the aftermath of the ‘Kennedy tragedy, Carolyn’s vanity, her superficiality, her drug use and her all-around ‘shrewish’ behavior was blamed for leading an inexperienced pilot to crash into the ocean.

This is despite Carolyn often telling friends and family she ‘didn’t trust’ her husband’s flying skills, as noted in DailyMail.com columnist Maureen Callahan’s book Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed.

Carolyn believed JFK Jr. lacked the patience, diligence and attention span to be a good pilot. 

He didn’t take his training seriously, hadn’t logged enough hours to fly alone, and regularly broke the rules by sneaking in solo flights when he was supposed to have an instructor with him.

Ann Freeman (right) pictured at the memorial taxi service new york jfk in Greenwich, Connecticut, for Lauren Bessette in 1999 

JFK Jr. was flying the aircraft with Carolyn, 33, and Lauren, 34, when it tragically plunged into the Atlantic on July 16, 1999. Pictured: Carolyn and Lauren in New York City in 1998

John F Kennedy Jr. sitting in cockpit with wife, Carolyn, in 1998 (he is pictured in a plane in the same year)

While it was 38-year-old JFK Jr., who was an inexperienced pilot, flying the small Piper Saratoga plane when it crashed; Carolyn is often blamed for the accident

According to DailyMail.com columnist Maureen Callahan’s book, Carolyn told friends and family she ‘didn’t trust’ her husband’s flying skills. Pictured in 1996

On the night of the fatal crash, another small-plane pilot had told JFK Jr. he was alarmed by the worsening visibility of the sky, suggesting he should wait.

However, the eager pilot replied:  ‘No chance.’

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Heartbreaking reason Carolyn Bessette’s sister was also on JFK Jr’s plane when he crashed

A flight instructor offered to go up with him, but he had refused. ‘I want to do it alone’, he said.

Before JFK Jr.’s scheduled take-off, four other pilots had to use their instruments to land in the worsening haze. Other, far more experienced pilots took one look at the sky that night and said: No way.

At 8.38 pm, JFK Jr. was given clearance to take off in his Piper Saratoga, despite defying one of aviation’s most basic rules: he hadn’t filed a flight plan. Once aloft, he defied another and cut off all communication with air traffic control.

Less than 20 minutes later, Carolyn and Lauren strapped into their back seats, the small plane was on a collision course with a commercial American Airliners flight. 

The pilots tried to reach the light aircraft but heard nothing right, so they sent an emergency message to ground control, who couldn’t make contact with him either.

Without knowing which way the clueless pilot of this small prop plane was going, the American Airlines pilots had to divert from their flight path to avoid a fatal mid-air collision.

JFK Jr. checking his plane in October 1998 at New Jersey’s Caldwell Airport

Wreckage of JFK Jr.’s plane is lifted from the water

A coast guard helicopter lifts a rescue swimmer from the water during the search for debris of JFK Jr.’s plane in 1999

JFK Jr. kept on climbing to 5,500 feet. Despite the fog and worsening visibility, he didn’t turn on his autopilot. Nor did he hug the lit-up coastline.

Instead, he turned right and went out over the Atlantic, and before he knew it the sea and sky had turned into one seamless black mass and he couldn’t tell up from down.

The plane went into a graveyard spiral, falling 900 feet per minute, 200 miles per hour, nose first into the ocean 

Aviation expert Jeff Guzzetti, who was part of the team that examined the wreckage, told PEOPLE that this may have played a role in Kennedy losing control of the aircraft, as he was forced to rely only on internal monitors and controls while flying through hazy night skies. 

‘He was trained to look outside to get his visual cues,’ he said. ‘There were no visual cues.’

After the fatal accident, an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found John alone responsible for this entirely avoidable tragedy. 

In 2001, Carolyn and Lauren’s mother Ann reportedly received millions in a wrongful-death settlement against his estate.