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Official: Stevens believed aboard crashed airplane

By BECKY BOHRER
Associated Press Writer
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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) -- A plane believed to be carrying eight people,
including former Sen. Ted Stevens, crashed in southwest Alaska and rescue
crews were trying to reach the wreckage early Tuesday, authorities said.

Alaska National Guard spokesman Maj. Guy Hayes said there were possible
fatalities. Five good Samaritans were on scene early Tuesday helping the
crash victims, he said. It was unclear how they reached the site.

A U.S. 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,
says Stevens' condition is unknown.

The federal official declined to be publicly identified because the crash
response and investigation are under way.

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.

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,'" she 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.

Stevens, 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 target of taxpayer
groups who challenged a $450 million appropriation for bridge construction
in Ketchikan.

Stevens' 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.

A National Transportation Safety Board investigative team has been
dispatched from Washington, D.C., to the crash site and was expected on the
ground Tuesday morning.

In Washington, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said the aircraft
is a DeHavilland DH3T registered to Anchorage-based GCI Communication Corp.

Dillingham is located in northern Bristol Bay, about 325 miles southwest of
Anchorage.
--
Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.co