The Washington Post carries an article under the headline Remarkable Risk-Takers: A Clan Chooses the Edge.

It says Kennedy took a risk by flying into a moonless, hazy night, "even though he was a novice pilot, even though his Piper Saratoga was a fairly intricate plane, even though he had a broken foot that made it harder to operate the pedals, even though his wife and other relatives had pressured him to drop his aviation hobby".

"It seems clear that his last risk killed him - along with his wife and sister-in-law - reigniting a familiar post-tragedy debate about the Kennedy family penchant for danger," the paper concludes.

Brian McGrory, a columnist on the Boston Globe, writes: "It has come to the point when Kennedy tragedy now seems to overshadow Kennedy triumph, when the passage of time is marked not by political conquests, but by soulful gatherings to grieve the loss of another young son."

"With each death goes a little more of the glory, and those close to the family say the loss of John Kennedy Jr, his young wife and her sister is incomprehensibly sad," he writes.

The JFK Jnr disaster has made headlines in Italy

In its obituary article, the New York Times says that "like many sons of famous fathers, Kennedy still seemed to be searching for his place in the public constellation".

"The expectations for him were as great as his father's legend was gripping - and he was conscious of his burden as an American icon," the paper says.

Around the world

A more critical tone is apparent in many British papers.

The Express says that Mr Kennedy "died as he lived, pursuing a passion with a reckless disregard for his safety".

He was, the paper alleges, "the feted member of a risk-taking clan with a morbid desire to join his father".

Spanish readers have also been caught up in the drama

Another London tabloid, the Mirror, carries a banner headline describing Mr Kennedy's last flight in one word: Insanity.

Trying to work out what caused the crash, meanwhile, the International Herald Tribune quotes pilots was saying that Mr Kennedy may have suffered from ''spatial disorientation'' as he flew over the ocean in darkness.

"He was flying visually, rather than with the aid of instruments, for which he was not qualified," the Tribune says; "experts said the haze might have made it difficult for him to judge where the water began."

The Italian daily La Stampa - which has coverage of the mystery spread over its first five pages - says the affair will inevitably arouse suspicions.

"Is it possible that the sophisticated satellites which scan the oceans of the world have not yet found the wreckage?" the paper asks.

Conspiracy theories are bound to flourish in the modern world, it says, "because we watch too may films, read too many books and, above all, because we have lived through too much".

The Paris daily Liberation makes a comparison between media treatment of Mr Kennedy's death and that of Princess Diana - but adds that what the two figures had in common was a "desire for normality".