Tag Archives: crash

Mass for Ted Stevens set for Monday

(CNN) — A memorial Mass for former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens will be celebrated Monday at the Holy Family Cathedral in Anchorage.

The Mass is not the official funeral for Stevens.

The funeral will be held Wednesday at the Anchorage Baptist Temple in Anchorage.

Stevens — who served in the U.S. Senate for 40 years — and four others died last week when the plane they were in flew into the side of a mountain in remote southern Alaska on August 9.

Video: Looking back at Ted Stevens

Video: A look at the Alaska plane crash site

Brutal terrain and bad weather kept survivors waiting 12 hours for rescue after the crash, officials and witnesses said. The crash left four others injured.

The National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday it was too early to tell whether Stevens and the others survived the crash, but eventually succumbed while waiting to be rescued, authorities said.

The aircraft, which was taking the group on a fishing trip, crashed about 17 miles north of Dillingham in the southwestern area of the state, authorities said.

Stevens was the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate’s history and a champion for Alaska.

Stevens earned the nickname “Uncle Ted” and a reputation as one of the most effective of all pork-barrel lawmakers, a senator who funneled billions of federal dollars to his home state.

His footprint can be seen all over Alaska. In Anchorage, where most people fly into the state, a large sign proclaims “Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.”

Mass for Ted Stevens set for Monday

Jet wreckage found in ocean off Santa Monica after 54 years

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The wreckage of a Lockheed T-33A Air Force jet trainer, which took off from Los Angeles International Airport in October 1955 with two crewmen aboard, was located in the ocean off of Santa Monica, it was announced Monday.

The information was turned over to the military’s Joint Prisoner of War/Missing In Action Command and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, according G. Pat Macha of Aircraft Wrecks in the Mountains and Deserts of the American West.

The plane was spotted in April during a sonar survey for another aircraft, a missing P-510 Mustang fighter presumed lost at sea in 1944, Macha said.

In the following months, a series of dives was conducted to gather photographic evidence to help in identifying the plane. A diver saw a stamped part number on a single piece of wreckage that was later confirmed by Lockheed- Martin to have originated from a T-33, Macha said.

The remains of an Allison J-33 turbo jet engine was also found near the wreckage.

Subsequent investigation determined that the only T-33 ever reported in the area took off from LAX on Oct. 15, 1955, and was presumed lost at sea.

Macha said further investigation may turn up human remains.

The missing pilots’ names were being withheld, he said.