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Former Senator Is Believed to Be in Plane Crash
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 10, 2010

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- A plane believed to be carrying eight people, including former Senator Ted Stevens, crashed in southwest Alaska and rescue crews were trying to reach the wreckage early Tuesday, authorities said.
A former NASA administrator,

Sean O'Keefe, was also believed to be aboard the plane.
An Alaska National Guard spokesman, Maj. Guy Hayes, said there were possible fatalities. Five people were on scene helping the crash victims, he said. It was unclear how they reached the site. A United States government official told The Associated Press that Alaska authorities have been told the former longtime Republican senator is among several passengers on the plane. The official, who spoke on grounds of anonymity, said Mr. Stevens's condition was unknown.
The federal official declined to be publicly identified because the crash response and investigation are under way.

The defense contractor EADS North America said Tuesday morning that Mr. O'Keefe, 54, the current chief executive of the United States-based division of the European company, was a passenger on the small plane. The company said it had no further information about Mr. O'Keefe's status.

Mr. Stevens, 86, a moderate Republican, was appointed to the Senate in 1968 and served longer than any other Republican in history. He directed billions of dollars to Alaska over the years. But one of his projects -- infamously known as the Bridge to Nowhere -- became a symbol of pork- barrel spending in Congress and a focus point for taxpayer groups who challenged a $450 million appropriation for bridge construction in Ketchikan. Mr. Stevens's standing in Alaska was toppled by corruption allegations and a federal trial in 2008. He was convicted of all seven counts -- and narrowly lost his Senate seat to Democrat Mark Begich in the election the following week.

But five months after the election, Attorney General Eric Holder sought to dismiss the indictment against Stevens and not proceed with a new trial because of prosecutorial misconduct by federal prosecutors. Major Hayes said the Guard was called to the area about 20 miles north of Dillingham at about 7 p.m. Monday after a passing aircraft saw the downed plane. But severe weather has hampered search and rescue efforts. Major Hayes said he was told by Alaska state troopers that there were "eight or nine" people on board, though a spokeswoman for the troopers, Megan Peters, refused to comment. She said all the agency could say for sure is that a plane went down and crews were "aggressively" trying to reach the crash site but having difficulty doing so. As of 4 a.m. Tuesday, she said she still hadn't received word that crews had reached the site. "I can't go beyond, 'We're responding to a plane crash,"' Ms. Peters said. The National Weather Service reported rain and fog at Dillingham, with low clouds and limited visibility early Tuesday. Conditions ranged from visibility of about 10 miles reported at Dillingham shortly before 7 p.m. Monday to 3 miles, with rain and fog, reported about an hour later, according to the agency. A National Transportation Safety Board investigative team has been dispatched from Washington, D.C., and was expected on the ground Tuesday. In Washington, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said the aircraft is a DeHavilland DH3T registered to Anchorage-based GCI Communication Corporation. Dillingham is in northern Bristol Bay, about 325 miles southwest of Anchorage.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/08/10/us/AP-US-AlaskaPlaneCrash-.html?_r=1&emc=na