Gruesome new details just out from the AP on the crash that killed Ted Stevens:
A doctor and two EMTs hiked to the scene Monday evening and tended to the survivors’ broken bones, cuts and bruises during a cold and frightening night on the mountain with the pungent odor of jet fuel wafting through the air.
A 13-year-old boy survived but had to spend the night near his dead father and the senator. A mother and her 16-year-old daughter died. Former NASA chief Sean O’Keefe survived along with his teenage son.
Pilot Tom Tucker helped shuttle the medical personnel to the scene.
He said the survivors were all in relative good condition. It was rainy and cold, and he believes their heavy duty fishing waders protected them when they went into shock.
“We covered them up with blankets and made them as comfortable as we could,” he said.
He said there was no rhyme or reason to how some survived the crash. The pilot was killed, but a passenger in the co-pilot’s seat survived. “The front of the aircraft was gone,” he said. “He was just sitting in the chair.”
They made a tarp tent over the missing cockpit to keep him dry.
Former NASA chief Sean O’Keefe is listed in critical condition, and his son is in serious condition, the AP reports. As for the other passengers:
The other survivors were William “Willy” Phillips Jr., 13; and Jim Morhard, of Alexandria, Va.
The victims were identified as Stevens; pilot Theron “Terry” Smith, 62, of Eagle River; William “Bill” Phillips Sr.; Dana Tindall, 48, an executive with GCI; and her 16-year-old daughter Corey Tindall.
