Missouri Gov. Carnahan dies in plane crash
By Reuters, 10/17/00
ST. LOUIS, -- Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, his son and an aide were killed in a plane crash Monday while headed to a campaign event for Carnahan's closely watched race for the US Senate, his office confirmed today.
Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan pictured here speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles last August. (AP Photo)
 Gov. Carnahan dies in plane crash
Death won't delay Bush-Gore debate
Carnahan biography
NAME: Melvin Eugene Carnahan.
BORN: 1934; 66 years old.
HOMETOWN: Rolla, Mo.; born in Birch Tree, Mo.
EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in business administration from George Washington University; law degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
PROFESSIONAL: Served as agent in the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations during the Korean War; Rolla municipal judge, 1960; state representative, 1962-66; majority floor leader, Missouri House, 1964-66; state treasure, 1980-84; lieutenant governor, 1988-92; Missouri governor, 1992-present.
PERSONAL: Married to Jean; children: Roger, Russ, Robin and Tom; two grandchildren; a licensed pilot.
QUOTE: "As a youth, I remember (Adlai) Stevenson saying public service was a 'high calling' and urging young people to get involved. I am still enough of an idealist to believe he was right."
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"Mel Carnahan was a great man. He's done so many things for so many people," an emotional Lt. Gov. Roger Wilson told a middle of the night news conference in Jefferson City, the state capital, several hours after the plane went down.
"I'd give anything if the confirmation (of his death) did not occur," added Wilson, who was immediately named acting governor.
Beyond the personal tragedy involved, Carnahan's death three weeks before election day was an apparent blow to the Democratic Party's bid to win back the US Senate, which the Republicans control 54-46.
Carnahan, 66, had been running neck-and-neck with Republican incumbent Sen. John Ashcroft, whose seat is one of a half dozen or so across the country that Democratic strategists had considered vulnerable.
Despite the crash, Carnahan's name will remain on the ballot as the Democratic candidate because a deadline for changes had passed and ballots were being printed, local radio reported. That could mean his successor as a candidate would have to run as write-in -- a difficult task in the best of circumstances.
Ashcroft called off all advertising and campaign activities. President Clinton, in the Mideast, called Carnahan's widow to express condolences.
CRASH SITE IN DENSE WOODS
Carnahan's twin-engine Cessna crashed in rain and fog 30 miles southwest of St. Louis late Monday not long after taking off from the St. Louis area.
The sheriff's office in Jefferson County, where the crash occurred, said witnesses reported hearing a plane go into a dive and seeing a fireball.
Killed along with Carnahan were his son Randy, who may have been at the controls, and a former chief of staff who was one of his top campaign advisers, Chris Sifford, 36.
Carnahan and his son were both pilots but only the son was rated for instrument flying -- which would have been necessary Monday evening -- and he usually piloted the plane on campaign trips, aides said.
The Jefferson County sheriff closed the site until daybreak after an initial search. Government safety investigators were due at the site on Tuesday.
Carnahan, a lawyer from Rolla, Missouri, was governor of Missouri for eight years. He had been in St. Louis for a fund-raiser Monday and was scheduled to attend a similar event at New Madrid, Missouri Monday evening. He had planned to return home to Jefferson City later in the evening.
The crash occurred as officials of both parties were gathering in St. Louis, site of the third presidential debate between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George Bush, which Carnahan was scheduled to attend Tuesday evening.
SON OF A POLITICAL FAMILY
Carnahan grew up in a political family. His father A.S.J. Carnahan served as a US congressman from 1945 through 1961, with a two-year hiatus in the 1940s, and was later appointed US ambassador to Sierra Leone.
After the Air Force and law school, Carnahan was elected a municipal judge in 1960 at the age of 26, followed by his election to the legislature two years later, where he helped secure passage of the state's civil rights law.
He was elected state treasurer in 1980. And in 1988, he was elected lieutenant governor under Ashcroft, who was then the governor.
Clinton has praised Carnahan's welfare-to-work plan, and the Democratic governor also pushed through a children's health insurance plan with coverage wider than all but a few other states.
The crash was an eerie replay of an accident two decades ago in which Democratic congressman Jerry Litton was killed along with his family in a plane crash in the northwest part of the state on the evening he won the Missouri's Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
