http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38637072/ns/us_news-life/

Second serious crash for him.

Sounds more like the last serious crash for him.

Fox News is reporting him as dead,

R.I.P Ted Stevens

__________________
TC
Current stable:
- 2004 Mazda RALLYWANKEL
- 2007 Saturn sky redline
- 2004 Explorer...under surgery.

Past: 135i, GTI, 300E, 300SD, 300SD, Stealth

He had it coming...even by his own accounts.

__________________
1984 300D, 228k, Light Ivory, Java MB-Tex

That sucks... I hate to see the loss of a nice DHC-3.

__________________
1980 300D - Veggie Burner !

Ted Stevens: A flier who faced the risks

By Walter J. Boyne
Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The crash of a famed "bush" aircraft, the de Havilland DHC-3T Otter, near Aleknagik, Alaska, that killed former U.S. senator Ted Stevens, 86, on Monday brought to a close a life filled with the dangers of flying. Before Stevens began the career in elected politics that culminated in 40 years in the Senate, he left college to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II. And in 1978, Stevens survived the crash of a Learjet at the Anchorage airport in which his wife, Ann, was killed.

Stevens had long accepted the hazards of flight in Alaska as being part of the political scene. Doubtless he was one of the few people who could fly over the state's rugged terrain with serene confidence. He had often flown over far more hostile territory during World War II.

At age 20, Lt. Stevens flew twin-engine transports "over the Hump," carrying vital supplies from bases in India to the Chinese armies resisting Japan. On these often-unaccompanied missions he had crossed the Himalayas; in Asia, the mountains were higher than in Alaska, the weather worse, and there was always the threat of a Japanese fighter plane showing up to dispute the passage. For his dedication and heroism flying the Hump and other flights behind Japanese lines, Stevens was awarded the fourth-highest federal medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC).

The "Hump" route had a more sinister nickname: the "Aluminum Trail," for all the aircraft wreckage that glinted brightly when the sun made its rare appearances. American pilots began flying the 530-mile route in 1942, taking off from bases in India and Burma. In October that year, all of the transport units operating in the theater were brought into the 10th Air Force, by direct order of Gen. Henry H. Arnold, chief of staff of the U.S. Army Air Forces.

The Douglas C-47 aircraft that were initially used strained to reach and maintain the altitudes necessary to clear the Himalayas. When the larger, more powerful (but more difficult to fly) Curtiss C-46 was introduced to the 322nd in September 1944, it allowed slightly more margin for error. Yet the route took its toll: At least 600 aircraft and more than 1,000 lives were lost in the three years it was used. In 1945, airlift needs ended when the Burma Road, from Lashio, India, to Kunming, China, was reopened.


Young Lt. Stevens was probably disappointed to find himself in the cockpit of a transport plane. He had completed flying school at Douglas, Ariz., earning his wings by May 1944, and probably expected to be assigned to Lockheed P-38 fighters. The urgent requirement for transports dictated otherwise, however, and he was assigned to the 322nd Troop Carrier Squadron, now part of the 14th Air Force commanded by Gen. Claire Chennault.

The unit was based primarily at Kunming, the original home of Chennault's famous American Volunteer Group, the Flying Tigers. The 322nd was equipped with the C-47 "Skytrain," which came to be known as the "Gooney Bird." The C-47 had been derived from the revolutionary Douglas DC-3 transport and was used by the armed services until the 1970s.

In September 1944, Stevens later recalled, he transitioned into the C-46, which after initial (and too often fatal) troubles with its Curtiss Electric propellers, turned into an aerial workhorse that substantially increased the capacity of the 322nd to move supplies.

While the route over the Himalayas demanded piloting skill and endurance, Stevens also flew many missions within the interior of China, some going behind Japanese lines, bringing supplies in direct support of Chinese troops. Stevens often had to land at tiny camouflaged airports, some with primitive crushed-stone runways that were narrower than the wingspan of his plane. He flew throughout Indochina, over what is now Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, and even made flights into Mongolia. The 322nd was also tasked with bringing vital supplies to the small American fighter bases that had sprung up far from road or rail traffic.

On one 1945 trip to Beijing (then Peking), Stevens encountered bad weather, and there was no local ground control to assist him. He improvised a non-precision approach using the local radio station and his plane's radio direction equipment. After the war, he returned and found that the approach he had devised was still being used.

The Distinguished Flying Cross, first awarded in 1927 to Charles Lindbergh, can be awarded to any member of the U.S. armed forces who distinguishes him or herself by "heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight." While Stevens was also awarded the Air Medal and the Yuan Hai medal by the Chinese Nationalist government, he surely must have been most proud of his DFC.

Walter J. Boyne, a retired Air Force colonel, directed the National Air and Space Museum from 1983 to 1986 and has written 54 books, several on military operations and aviation history.