News--Ted Stevens Plane Crash

Tragedy in Alaska, where five people have died in a plane crash. Among the passengers is former senator Ted Stevens and former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe.

Stevens had previously been in a plane crash, this one in 1978 where he was one of two survivors. His wife died in that crash.

Some reports have it Stevens was among those killed.

Update: Stevens died in the crash, but O'Keefe and his teenage son were among the four survivors.

This is interesting from the New York Times:

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.”

All of the passengers have been identified.
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