The former senator from Alaska died in a plane crash on Monday night. The 86-year-old Republican served in the Senate from 1968 until 2008, when he lost amidst a corruption investigation that was later thrown out. There was initially much confusion over whether Stevens died in the crash because rescuers had difficulty reaching the wreckage due to bad weather. Five of the plane's nine passengers died. In 1978, Stevens survived a plane crash that killed his first wife.
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The outspoken senator from Minnesota was a leader of liberal, anti-war, pro-environment Democrats since his first election to the Senate in 1990. During his second reelection bid in 2002, the small plane he was campaigning on in his home state crashed just 11 days before the election. His wife and daughter were also killed. Wellstone’s surviving sons now co-chair Wellstone Action, a nonprofit founded in his honor.
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The small plane carrying the Missouri governor—and piloted by his son Randy—crashed into a hillside and killed them both less than a month before the 2000 election, in which he was running for Senate. Too late to change the ballots, Missourians elected Carnahan to the Senate anyway. (He beat John Ashcroft, who later served as President George W. Bush’s attorney general.) Carnahan’s wife, Jean, served in his place.
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Three-term-Representative John Heinz used his personal fortune (think ketchup) to win election as a senator from Pennsylvania in 1976. In 1991, the Republican was serving his third Senate term when his plane experienced landing gear problems as it flew over an elementary school. A helicopter approached to inspect the gear, and a blade struck the belly of the plane, causing both to crash. Everyone on board died, as did two girls playing outside their school.
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President Clinton’s Commerce secretary, Ron Brown, was the first African-American to have that job. He had been on the job for three years when, in 1996, his plane crashed into a mountain in Croatia, killing him and 34 others. Brown’s death became the subject of many Clinton-era conspiracy theories because he had been a major Democratic fundraiser and was under investigation by an independent counsel at the time of his death.
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The tragic crash that claimed the life of Polish President Lech Kaczynski in April 2010 happened near a spot that already had grim historic significance for the Poles. Kaczynski—with his wife and top government and military officials—was on a trip to mark the 70th anniversary of the massacre of 20,000 Polish leaders by Soviet police in the Katyn forest, near Smolensk, in western Russia, the site of the crash.
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House Majority Leader Hale Boggs (D-LA) and Rep. Nick Begich (D-AK) disappeared on their airplane while en route from Anchorage to Juneau in 1972. The military searched for the politicians for 39 days, but not a trace of the aircraft was ever found. In absentia, both were reelected in their districts. The House had to pass a special resolution in 1973 to pave the way for special elections to replace the pair. Some conspiracy theorists speculated that Boggs was killed due to his position on the Warren Commission, and his doubts that President Kennedy was killed by a single bullet.
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Mississippi Democrat Larkin Smith won Trent Lott’s congressional seat after Lott was elected to the Senate in 1988. Larkin served less than a year, however, because he was killed in a plane crash near Gulfport, Mississippi, the August after his swearing-in.
Eight years after Ron Brown’s plane crashed into Croatian mountains, the plane carrying Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski broke into three pieces when it smashed into a mountainside only a few miles from Brown’s crash site. Trajkovski was on his way to an economic conference before the 2004 accident, and the rescue efforts were hampered because of the mines left behind in the area after the Bosnian war.
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United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld was flying in secret to negotiate a cease-fire between U.N. forces and Congolese fighters in 1961 when his plane crashed in Northern Rhodesia, now known as Zambia. Hammarskjöld was awarded the Nobel Prize, the only person to get the honor posthumously. Like many politicians killed in unexpected crashes, conspiracy theories linger concerning the Swede’s death, including ideas that he was killed to protect colonial interests in Africa.
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Habyarimana, president of Rwanda, and Ntaryamira, president of Burundi, were assassinated April 6, 1994, when their plane was shot down with two surface-to-air missiles over Kigali, Rwanda. The plane burst into flames and exploded on impact, killing all 12 aboard. The crash sparked the Rwandan genocide, in which between 800,000 and 1 million people were killed.
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Texas anti-poverty crusader Mickey Leland was one of the first African-Americans elected to the Texas House of Representatives. He was elected to the U.S. House in 1978 and chaired the Congressional Black Caucus. Leland’s work fighting hunger had spread to Africa. He was on a mission there in 1989 when his plane crashed in Ethiopia, only a few days before fellow Rep. Larkin Smith died in a crash.
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