Senator Ted Stevens Dies in a Plane Crash in Alaska

DILLINGHAM, ALASKA (GaeaTimes.com) — Senator Ted Stevens, along with 4 other people died on Monday, in a plane crash in Alaska mountainside. The 3 survivors were stranded on a rocky, brush-covered slope overnight until rescuers could reach them.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mike Fergus said the plane, a 1957 DeHavilland DHC-3T was registered to Anchorage-based General Communications Inc. The plane took off at 2 p.m. Monday from a GCI corporate site on Lake Nerka and was heading towards a lodge on Lake Aleknagik. Stevens and eight others were travelling in that amphibious single-engine plane for a fishing trip. On their way, the plane experienced sudden fog and rain in a rugged section of southwestern Alaska that forced it to get slammed into a mountainside.

The 3 passengers who survived the crash includes former NASA chief Sean O’Keefe and three teenagers. They have been taken to Providence Hospital in Anchorage with varying degrees of injuries by the Alaska state troopers.

Besides Stevens 84, the other dead bodies have been identified as pilot Theron “Terry” Smith, 62, of Eagle River; William “Bill” Phillips Sr.; GCI executive Dana Tindall, 48, of Anchorage; and Corey Tindall, 16, of Anchorage.

The Ted Stevens crash is the latest addition in a long line of aviation accidents, which claimed political figures over the years in the U.S. The list includes Pennsylvania Sen. John Heinz in 1991, South Dakota Gov. George Mickelson in 1993, Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan in 2000 and Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone in 2002.