Plane Carrying Missouri Governor Crashes

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Tuesday October 17 12:38 AM ET Plane Carrying Missouri Governor Crashes

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - A plane believed to be carrying Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan crashed in rain and fog on Monday night and the Democratic state party chairman said that the governor was ``missing.''

Carnahan, who has been governor of Missouri for eight years, was running for the Senate and had been locked in a tight race with incumbent Republican Sen. John Ashcroft.

The governor and two other people had been aboard a small, private plane that crashed 30 miles southwest of St. Louis late on Monday. It went down shortly after takeoff. The three had been headed to New Madrid, Missouri.

Ray Temple, the Democratic state chairman, said the governor was ``missing'' but declined to say that he had been killed.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001017/ts/crash_missouri_dc_2.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), October 17, 2000

Answers

Sorry to say, but several sources now say he died in the crash along with his son and a top member of his campaign staff. JB

-- Jackson Brown (Jackson_Brown@deja.com), October 17, 2000.

CBC

Tue Oct 17, 2:30 am

Missouri governor killed in plane crash

The governor of Missouri was killed in a plane crash Monday night, along with his son and an adviser.

Gov. Mel Carnahan, his son Randy and a longtime aide were killed when the small private plane they were in crashed in rain and fog about 30 miles southwest of St. Louis.

A Democrat, Carnahan had been in St. Louis for a fund-raiser as the eight-year governor was locked in a heated battle for a senate seat with incumbent Republican Sen. John Ashcroft.

He was to attend a similar event at New Madrid, Mo., before heading back to the state capital, Jefferson City.

Earlier reports would only say the governor was missing, but a local television station said Carnahan was also dead.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), October 17, 2000.


The first accounts this morning came from the local Sheriff who said he had interviewed several people who saw "the big flash in the sky" and others who said the impact made their house shake.

Exactly what would cause a big flash in the sky?

-- meg davis (meg9999@aol.com), October 17, 2000.


I don't know, Meg, but this article says the airplane was flying IFR in clouds and may have encountered an instrument problem involving the gyro.

Pos tnet

Mel Carnahan, Missouri's 51st governor and the Democratic candidate in a nationally watched race for the U.S. Senate, died when his campaign plane plunged into rugged woods in Jefferson County during a storm Monday night.

Killed with him were Roger A. "Randy" Carnahan, the governor's son and regular pilot, and Chris Sifford, a top political advisor. The pilot, presumably Randy Carnahan, reported having trouble with the airplane's instrument system shortly before it disappeared from aviation radar at Lambert Field.

Mel Carnahan, 66, was completing his second term as Missouri governor. He was engaged in a tense, expensive and close contest against U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., in the Nov. 7 general election, and was headed to a rally in the Bootheel when he died.

Ashcroft suspended his campaign events and pulled TV and radio ads. Because of the late date, Carnahan's name will remain on the ballot. Funeral arrangements were pending.

In Jefferson City, the title of acting governor went to Lt. Gov. Roger Wilson, who met this morning with top state officials in the governor's office on the second floor of the State Capitol. One block to the east, mourners placed bouquets along the wrought-iron fence of the governor's mansion.

"I'd give anything that (this) did not have to occur," said Wilson. He said he wanted to "lean on about five million Missourians' shoulders."

Condolences to Jean Carnahan, the governor's widow, poured in from across the country and from as far away as Egypt, where President Clinton is meeting with leaders of the Middle East. Jean Carnahan issued a statement urging that Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush proceed with their final presidential debate tonight at Washington University.

"Because my husband cherished our democracy and its expression, he would very much want the debate ... to go on," the statement says. There had been talk of delaying the debate because of the accident.

The presidential campaigns adjusted plans for rallies in an atmosphere tempered by the governor's death. Gore canceled a pre-debate rally at the Radisson Hotel, and the Greater St. Louis Labor Council also canceled a post-debate rally with Gore.

The Bush campaign's debate-watch party at Clayton High School will be held, but will be more subdued, said Catherine Hanaway, Bush's Missouri campaign coordinator.

Gore also canceled an appearance scheduled for Wednesday in Kansas City, and will instead travel to Jefferson City to meet with the Carnahan's family.

A candlelight vigil was scheduled for tonight at the World Fair Pavilion in Forest Park.

Crash killed Carnahan's son, aide

Randy Carnahan, 44, of Rolla, was the oldest of the Carnahan's four children, a lawyer and a commercial-rated pilot. Chris Sifford, 37, was a campaign adviser who earlier had been the governor's press secretary.

Their twin-engine private plane took off at about 7 p.m. Monday from St. Louis Parks Downtown Airport in Cahokia for a 150-mile flight south to New Madrid, Mo.

But the Federal Aviation Administration tower at Lambert Airport lost radar contact with the airplane at 7:32 p.m., and residents of an area seven miles northeast of Hillsboro reported hearing an airplane in a steep dive and then an explosion, and seeing a fireball in nearby woods.

A spokeswoman for the FAA said today that Carnahan's plane was flying at 6,500 feet when the pilot reported a "gyro problem." A gyroscope on an airplane is a dashboard instrument that helps the pilot with basic orientation and sense of horizon - distinguishing level flight from banking, turning from straight and climbing from descent.

The plane disappeared from radar a short time later, spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.

Carnahan, 66, was flying in a Cessna 335, a craft with two piston-powered engines and a cabin that normally seats six. Prior to takeoff, the pilot had filed an instrument flight plan, a common practice for a multi-engine craft in good weather or bad. Doing so puts the aircraft into the nation's air-traffic control system and assigns an identification number to the craft's radar screen "blip."

The six-seater plane was 20 years old and owned by the Carnahan family law firm in Rolla.

Workers with the National Transportation Safety Board went up in a Missouri State Highway Patrol helicopter to retrace the plane's path, while other NTSB investigators broke into teams to track witness accounts, and weather and radar data.

``We're putting into place our game plan at this time,'' said Carol Carmody, NTSB spokeswoman. ``We're not on any timeframe.''

At the time of the crash, the St. Louis area was socked in by steady rain and low-level clouds that probably rose to at least twice the aircraft's reported altitude, said Joe Petigo, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Weldon Spring. "The chances are that he was in the clouds," Petigo said.

Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer said searchers working in darkness found a scorched site of impact east of Old Lemay Ferry Road about two miles north of the old Sandy Creek Covered Bridge, in the Goldman area, and six miles west of Pevely. He said the crash site is hilly, rocky and thick with timber and brush.

It is about 25 miles south of St. Louis.

Search turns up airplane parts

On Monday night, firefighters also found small parts of an airplane, including a landing wheel and parts of engines, as well as human remains. They stopped at midnight Monday because of slippery, dangerous conditions in the dark. Firefighters, state troopers, sheriff's deputies and FBI agents went back into the woods shortly before dawn today.

The National Transportation Safety Board took over the site and search at 8 a.m. Carol Carmody, a member of the Washington-based board, was on the scene but declined to discuss the accident.

Capt. Ed Kemp, of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, said debris from the crash would be taken to the National Guard Armory in Festus for examination. Late this morning, Kemp said there had been no positive identification of bodies or verification in the field that the wreckage was Carnahan's plane.

Reporters and residents gathered at the Goldman Fire Protection District fire house on Old Lemay Ferry to await developments. Among them was Jerry Sifford of Barnhart, a cousin of Chris Sifford.

Jerry Sifford said family members had hoped that Chris Sifford had not gotten onto the plane, but assumed the worst when they learned that his billfold was among the personal items found at the crash site.

"We called him the governor's right-hand man," Jerry Sifford said of his cousin.

Boyer, the sheriff, said he recently taped an ad for Carnahan's campaign. "I know Gov. Carnahan," Boyer said. "He was a fine man."

Funeral arrangements are pending

Funeral arrangements for Gov. Mel Carnahan and his son, Roger "Randy" Carnahan, were incomplete Tuesday evening. Services for Chris Sifford, the governor's political advisor, were set for the weekend.

The Carnahan family asked that in lieu of flowers, people make contributions to the Children's Trust Fund, P.O. Box 1641, Jefferson City, Mo. 65102-1641. The trust fund is a not-for-profit charitable organization that addresses the needs of abused and underprivileged children in Missouri.

Visitation for Sifford will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Morgan Sifford Funeral Home in Puxico. The funeral is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday at the Puxico High School gymnasium. Burial will be at the Puxico Cemetery.

Memorials for Sifford may be made to the Chris Sifford Scholarship Fund, which was being established at the First Midwest Bank of Puxico. Jeff Copeland, a close friend of Sifford's, will oversee the fund.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), October 18, 2000.


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