Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, four others die in plane crash

MARK THIESSEN and BECKY BOHRER Yahoo! News 08/10/2010 15:15

Fmr. Alaska Sen. Stevens

DILLINGHAM, Alaska – An amphibious plane carrying former Sen. Ted Stevens crashed into a remote mountainside during a fishing trip, killing the state's most beloved political figure and four others and stranding the survivors on a rocky, brush-covered slope overnight.

Three teenagers and their parents, including the former head of NASA, were on the plane when it plowed into the mountain Monday afternoon with so much force that it left a 300-foot gash on the slope, federal investigators said.

A doctor and two EMTs hiked to the scene Monday evening and tended to the survivors' broken bones, cuts and bruises during a cold and frightening night on the mountain with the pungent odor of jet fuel wafting through the air.

A 13-year-old boy survived but had to spend the night near his dead father and the senator. A mother and her 16-year-old daughter died. Former NASA chief Sean O'Keefe survived along with his teenage son.

The 86-year-old Stevens' death stunned lawmakers and residents alike because of his pre-eminence in Alaska history: A decorated World War II pilot who survived a deadly 1978 plane crash, he was the longest-serving GOP senator in history and became the patron saint of Alaska politics as he brought billions of federal dollars home.

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