Pilots Blamed For Senator's Crash

Pilot error caused the plane crash that killed Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and seven others, investigators said Tuesday.

Investigators told the National Transportation Safety Board that the twin-propeller King Air A100 stalled when it slowed down too quickly while approaching Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport in northern Minnesota on Oct. 25, 2002. The plane lost altitude, veered sharply, sheared off treetops and crashed 2½ miles short of the runway.

"The flight crew did not monitor and maintain minimum speed," NTSB Aircraft Performance Group Chairman Charlie Pereira told the board, which will vote on whether to accept the finding.

Wellstone; his wife, Sheila; their 33-year-old daughter, Marcia Wellstone Markuson; three campaign workers and the pilot and co-pilot died. They were traveling to a funeral.

The crash occurred less than two weeks before Election Day. Following Wellstone's death, former Vice President Walter Mondale accepted the Democratic candidacy. After a brief campaign, Republican Norm Coleman won the seat Wellstone had held for nearly 12 years.

On the day of the crash it was cloudy and cold. Crash investigators looked at the possibility icing on the wings contributed to the accident, but discounted that and focused instead on pilot Richard Conry, 55, and co-pilot Michael Guess, 30.

John Clark, the NTSB's director of aviation safety, said Conry and Guess were flying too high and too fast as they began their approach. They slowed down too much as they tried to make up for the mistake, he said. The plane went from 190 mph to 87 mph in the final 90 seconds of the flight.

It's unclear why the pilots didn't realize the plane was moving too slowly. "One of them should have been monitoring the instruments," said Bill Bramble, a human performance investigator for the NTSB.

Interviews conducted after the crash revealed shortcomings in the proficiency of both pilots, investigators said.

By Leslie Miller