Alaska plane crash a painful reminder for families of Boggs and Begich
On a recent summer afternoon, Alaskan and American flags fluttered together above the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center, a low-slung gray building on the banks of Portage Lake. Inside, tourists perused a chart on sockeye salmon and maps of the surrounding Chugach Mountains. Few people paid any attention to a black-and-white memorial to the center's namesakes.
"On October 16, 1972, United States House of Representatives Majority Leader Thomas Hale Boggs and United States Representative Nicholas J. Begich boarded an airplane in Anchorage en route to Juneau," read a few short paragraphs alongside photos of the congressmen. "The aircraft disappeared amidst turbulent conditions, and no trace of the men or the airplane was found."
A vanishing that seared the political establishment in Washington and caused a 40-year shift in Alaska's balance of power has itself largely faded from memory. On Monday night, the nation received an eerie reminder when another small-engine plane went down in southwestern Alaska near Aleknagik Lake, killing former senator Ted Stevens (R), whose first wife died in a 1978 crash that he survived. For the Boggs and Begich families, the Stevens tragedy is something more than a data point to demonstrate that Alaska is a state plagued by plane crashes. It is yet another haunting echo of a mystery that has defined and bound two of the nation's most politically prominent, and different, clans for decades....
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"On October 16, 1972, United States House of Representatives Majority Leader Thomas Hale Boggs and United States Representative Nicholas J. Begich boarded an airplane in Anchorage en route to Juneau," read a few short paragraphs alongside photos of the congressmen. "The aircraft disappeared amidst turbulent conditions, and no trace of the men or the airplane was found."
A vanishing that seared the political establishment in Washington and caused a 40-year shift in Alaska's balance of power has itself largely faded from memory. On Monday night, the nation received an eerie reminder when another small-engine plane went down in southwestern Alaska near Aleknagik Lake, killing former senator Ted Stevens (R), whose first wife died in a 1978 crash that he survived. For the Boggs and Begich families, the Stevens tragedy is something more than a data point to demonstrate that Alaska is a state plagued by plane crashes. It is yet another haunting echo of a mystery that has defined and bound two of the nation's most politically prominent, and different, clans for decades....