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Fmr. AK Senator Ted Steven dies in Plane Crash age 86

  • 10-08-2010 10:08PM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,683 ✭✭✭✭


    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/us/11crash.html?src=me

    11stevensspan-cnd-articleLarge.jpg

    Former United States Senator Ted Stevens was killed in a plane crash in southwestern Alaska on Monday night. Five of the nine people on board the small plane headed to a remote fishing lodge were killed in the crash, Gov. Sean Parnell of Alaska said.

    Mr. Stevens, who had been the longest-serving Republican in the United States Senate while representing Alaska, was 86.
    Sean O’Keefe, 54, a former NASA administrator who now is an executive with the European aerospace firm EADS, was also on the plane with his son, but they both survived, according to an official briefed on the crash who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

    Mr. O’Keefe, the official said, was “badly injured,” and was among three passengers airlifted to an Anchorage hospital. The body of Mr. Stevens was found just after daylight, according to a former aide to Mr. Stevens who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of respect to the family.
    “Though small of stature, Ted Stevens seemed larger than life, and anybody who knew him, knew him that way, for he built for Alaska and he stood for Alaska and he fought for Alaskans,” Mr. Parnell said at a news conference in Anchorage. President Obama, in a statement, praised Mr. Stevens on Tuesday afternoon, when word of his death was made official:
    “A decorated World War II veteran, Senator Ted Stevens devoted his career to serving the people of Alaska and fighting for our men and women in uniform. Michelle and I extend our condolences to the entire Stevens family and to the families of those who perished alongside Senator Stevens in this terrible accident.”

    Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, with whom Mr. Stevens had recently campaigned, was among the first to confirm his death.
    “Last night, Alaska lost a hero and I lost a dear friend,” Ms. Murkowski said in a statement. “The thought of losing Ted Stevens, a man who was known to business and community leaders, Native chiefs and everyday Alaskans as ‘Uncle Ted,’ is too difficult to fathom. His entire life was dedicated to public service — from his days as a pilot in World War II to his four decades of service in the United States Senate. He truly was the greatest of the ‘Greatest Generation.’ ”

    Major Guy Hayes, chief of public affairs for the Alaska National Guard, did not identify any of the dead or the survivors, but said in a telephone interview that the survivors were airlifted onto a Coast Guard C-130 plane, and that the National Guard rescue workers were “going back to the scene to provide further medical attention to those on the ground.” He said that “Good Samaritans” who had gone to the crash site were also assisting the rescue operations.

    Two of the four survivors were first treated at Kanakanak Hospital in Dillingham, about 17 miles south of the crash, according to a hospital spokeswoman, Joann Livermont.

    The four survivors were eventually flown to Anchorage on the C-130 for further treatment. The rescue crew was not able to reach the crash site for more than 12 hours after the accident because of rain, high winds and heavy fog in an area of mountains and lakes north of Bristol Bay.

    The crash occurred about 320 miles southwest of Anchorage, the National Transportation Safety Board said. Another plane spotted the downed aircraft around 7 p.m. and notified authorities, the National Guard said.
    Mr. Stevens and the other passengers were flying to a lodge near Lake Aleknagik, where he often spent summers fishing. Mr. Stevens and Mr. O’Keefe had been longtime fishing buddies.

    The N.T.S.B. said that the crash was about 10 miles northwest of Lake Aleknagik, and the aircraft was a DeHavilland DHC-3T. The single-engine, high-wing airplane plane is owned by GCI, the Alaskan telecommunications provider, as is the lodge.

    According to a longtime bush pilot out of Dillingham who had flown over the crash site around 8 p.m. on Monday, the plane had not completely broken up on impact. The bush pilot spoke on the condition of anonymity because he flies for GCI.

    In speaking with several other pilots who were in the area at the time, the bush pilot said that the pilot of the GCI plane was apparently lost in cloud cover and lost radio contact. The pilot apparently began racing to a higher elevation when the plane slammed into the Muklung Hills, at about 1,000 feet.

    The bush pilot said other pilots in the area had learned that the plane most likely crashed several hours earlier but that it had not filed a flight plan and authorities were not immediately aware that it was missing. Two private helicopters were the first on the scene, the bush pilot said. Brian M. Smith, of Anchorage, confirmed in a brief telephone interview that his father, Theron A. Smith, known as Terry, was aboard the flight, but would not confirm that he was the pilot. “He was on the airplane, that’s all I’m going to say,” the younger Mr. Smith said. “He was killed on the airplane.”

    The plane went undetected by radar because in the area where it went down, about 20 miles north of Dillingham, there is no radar coverage below about 4,000 feet, according to one air traffic control expert familiar with the area. The expert asked not to be identified because the N.T.S.B. is in charge of releasing information. The flight was under visual flight rules, two people familiar with the area said, meaning that it was not being directed by air traffic controllers.

    The N.T.S.B. said it was sending a team of investigators to the crash site, even though it said it did not know the identity of those on board. The agency does not ordinarily send a board member from Washington to the crashes of private or corporate planes.

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    Mr. Stevens was appointed to the Senate in 1968 before he was elected to the first of six terms. He had served in the Senate for 40 years until he lost his bid for a seventh term in 2008 after he was found guilty of corruption charges. The case was later thrown out because of prosecutorial misconduct.

    His stature in Alaska seemed to have remained virtually intact despite the scandal. Mr. Stevens survived another plane crash on Dec. 4, 1978, that killed five of seven people on board, including his first wife, Ann. He was traveling on a Lear jet that crashed when landing at Anchorage International Airport, which was renamed Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport in honor of the senator in 2000.

    Before that 1978 crash, Mr. Stevens reportedly spoke of a premonition that he would die in a plane crash, a fate that is not unknown to many in Alaska who travel the vast state in small planes. He was a key supporter of legislation intended to help relatives of those killed in air crashes, according to Hans Ephraimson-Abt, a spokesman for the Air Crash Victims Family Group. A proposal to establish an office of family assistance inside the National Transportation Safety Board, to keep grieving relatives apprised of the progress of an investigation and to help them claim remains and personal effects, had languished in the Senate in the 1990s.
    “He was the ranking member of the Commerce Committee,” Mr. Ephraimson-Abt said. “He and Senator Larry Pressler and Senator Alphonse D’Amato convened, at our suggestion, a last-minute hearing” on the proposal. “Without his activity, this act would never have gone into effect.”

    Mr. Ephraimson-Abt, a volunteer whose daughter died in 1983 when the Soviet Air Force shot down a South Korean airliner that had strayed into Russian airspace, attributed Mr. Stevens’s help to the fact that Mr. Stevens had lost his first wife in a plane crash.
    The Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act of 1996 became an international model.

    Not the way you want to see anybody go to be fair.


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,271 ✭✭✭kev9100


    R.I.P Senator Stevens. It really is incredible that anyone survived that crash.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 888 ✭✭✭Mjollnir


    He won't be missed.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 23,089 ✭✭✭✭rovert


    Mjollnir wrote: »
    He won't be missed.

    Come on, seriously.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 888 ✭✭✭Mjollnir


    rovert wrote: »
    Come on, seriously.

    The man was the embodiment of all that is wrong in American politics. Career politician, venal, pugnacious, corrupt and utterly, totally hypocritical.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 12,333 ✭✭✭✭JONJO THE MISER


    A Great Man, R.I.P.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 725 ✭✭✭rightwingdub


    Another pork barrell politician, good riddance.


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