Senate Colleagues Honor Wellstone

Fellow senators remembered Paul Wellstone Monday as a man who always followed his conscience, even if it meant taking the unpopular view or being on the losing side.

"He was respected by people who didn't agree with him because they knew that he was speaking from his heart, speaking from his soul, speaking what he truly believed," said fellow Minnesota Sen. Mark Dayton of Wellstone, who was killed Friday in a plane crash in northern Minnesota.

Dayton and three other Democratic senators gathered on the Senate floor to eulogize Wellstone and approve a resolution expressing the Senate's "profound sorrow and deep regret" on the deaths of Wellstone, his wife and daughter, three staff members and two pilots in the crash.

It noted that Wellstone, one of the Senate's most liberal members, "worked tirelessly on behalf of America's veterans and the less fortunate, particularly children and families living in poverty and those with mental illness."

Dayton was followed by another political ally and friend, California Sen. Barbara Boxer.

She praised Wellstone's "fierce dedication" to justice and righteousness, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob Fuss.

"For me the loss of Paul Wellstone cuts deep. Compassionate, kind, a passionate voice for those without a voice," Boxer said.

Wellstone's desk in the back row of the Senate chamber was draped in black felt with a fresh flower arrangement on top.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., noted that Wellstone "rubbed some people the wrong way" when he first came to Washington in 1991 because he was determined to change the world. "These very people became the people who cared most about him in many ways in the final analysis because they realized that everything he said and everything he did was not about himself but about the people he wanted to represent."

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., also spoke of the deep affection people working in the Capitol had for the late senator.

The Senate is in recess and few senators are in Washington. Some, including Wellstone, have been campaigning for re-election.

Former Vice President Walter Mondale has gotten a crucial vote of confidence from the Wellstone as Democrats scramble to replace the fallen senator on the Nov. 5 ballot.

"Mr. Mondale is the choice of the Wellstone family," said Mike Erlandson, chairman of the state's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Erlandson said Wellstone's son personally asked Mondale on Saturday to take over the race.

A group of up to 875 Minnesota Democrats - delegates and alternates to the party's central committee - will meet Wednesday to officially choose the substitute candidate for Wellstone, who died Friday in a plane crash along with his wife, daughter and three campaign workers. Two pilots also died.

The crash threw the battle for control of the Senate into question with the Nov. 5 election nearly a week away. The race had been tight between former St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman and Wellstone and was a top target of Republicans trying to regain control of the chamber.

Erlandson said the family's choice would weigh heavily in the party's decision. He said he believes Mondale, a household name in Minnesota, will run if nominated.

Mondale, 74, hasn't returned calls to reporters or answered the door at his Minneapolis home.

Those close to Mondale said he isn't expected to comment publicly on a potential candidacy until after Tuesday's memorial service for the crash victims.

Most members of the U.S. Senate are expected to attend the memorial, said Allison Dobson, a Wellstone spokeswoman. She did not know if President George Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney would attend. Former President Bill Clinton plans to attend the memorial, a spokesman for him said Sunday.

Meanwhile, investigators have so far found nothing in the wreckage that points to a cause of Friday's crash, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob Orr.

But National Transportation Safety Board acting chair Carol Carmody says investigators have some leads.

She says at the time of the crash, pilots reported "light and rime icing" on planes. "Rime" refers to tiny ice crystals.

But she says Wellstone's plane was equipped with deicing equipment.

Carmody also says as the plane neared the airport in Eveleth, Minnesota, it began to drift off course and lose speed.

But she says "everything had been completely normal" up to when controllers lost contact.

Carmody says F-A-A investigators have learned navigational gear at the airport was "slightly out of tolerance."

But she says they're not sure how significant that is.

The plane, a King Air 100, was not equipped with a flight data or voice recorder. There was no radio distress call, and radar shows the plane in what seems to be a normal approach down to where the radar drops out, about 400 feet above the ground.

The impact crater shows the plane had turned away from the runway for some reason, suggesting a number of possibilities – an attempted go-around, disorientation, or loss of control. No scenario is currently provable.

The pilots had been warned of icing conditions in the area of the crash and icing remains a likely culprit. But some investigators say the worst icing conditions were at altitudes above where Wellstone's plane was flying, and the existence of "light snow" near the surface argues against freezing rain in the immediate vicinity of the crash. In any case, an intense post-crash fire wiped out any evidence of icing, if there ever was any.

A competing theory – and one gaining credence among investigators – is that the pilots simply got too low in their instrument approach in very poor conditions (400-foot ceiling and one-quarter mile visibility) and clipped some trees.

Finally, investigators say there is no evidence of terrorism.

All of this taken together makes this crash incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to solve.