4th anniversary of Wellston's plane crash

by **chiggerbit** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:02 pm

And people with felony records for mail fraud make bad pilots?

by **Hugh Manatee Wins** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:34 pm

A major scandal and investigation aborted by Brown's death, decent weather claimed to be deadly by the media, a possible location beacon scandal suppressed, some other interesting things. I add this whole article to show precedent for the controversies over Wellstone's death. <a href="http://vikingphoenix.com/news/archives/1997/brwn9702.htm">vikingphoenix.com/news/ar...wn9702.htm</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>November 24, 1997 Questions linger about Ron Brown plane crash By Christopher Ruddy and Hugh Sprunt FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW WASHINGTON, D.C. - As Attorney General Janet Reno decides whether to call for an independent counsel for fund-raising matters, questions about the death of one of the central figures in the scandal continue. On April 3, 1996, an Air Force Boeing 737 carrying Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others on a trade mission crashed into a mountainside near Croatia's Dubrovnik airport. The Air Force quickly determined the tragic event to be an accident. Brown, who rose from a childhood in Harlem to become the first black to head a major U.S. political party and the highest-ranking black in the Clinton Administration, was eulogized as an American hero during elaborate memorial services. Little noted during this grieving period was that Brown was the major target of an independent counsel probe headed by Daniel Pearson. Pearson's inquiry had been triggered by allegations that shortly before joining the Clinton administration, Brown received a bribe from a Vietnamese businessman. Also raised in Congress were allegations that Brown's intimate friend and business partner, Nolanda Hill, had passed money to Brown in several sham financial transactions just before he took the Commerce post. Pearson's inquiry soon widened beyond these allegations into matters directly affecting the Clinton administration. On March 19, 1996, just weeks before Ron Brown would lose his life, Pearson obtained wide-ranging subpoenas calling for records of the Asian Pacific Advisory Council, or APAC, a fund-raising organization affiliated with the Democratic National Committee. More than 20 individuals and entities would receive subpoenas, including Brown and his son Michael; Gene and Nora Lum and their business, Dynamic Energy; the DNC; and several APAC fund-raisers who were brought to the Commerce Department by Brown. At about the same time, a conservative legal group, Judicial Watch, was investigating the possibly illegal ties of Brown and his Commerce Department to DNC fund-raising efforts. Using a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Judicial Watch focused on Commerce's overseas trade missions and whether participants were selected because they had been major donors to the DNC. Judicial Watch had already identified John Huang, a Commerce official and former DNC fund-raiser, as a target of its suit. Huang had also been APAC's major fund-raiser and was president of the Lippo Group USA, the American arm of the now-famous Indonesian firm headed by Mochtar Riady. Lippo has had longstanding ties to Bill Clinton and alleged links to the fund-raising scandal and the Chinese government. As part of its suit, Judicial Watch had taken a deposition from Huang and was preparing to take a deposition from Brown. Another curious figure was Melinda Yee of APAC, who became Brown's personal assistant at Commerce. Months later, after the 1996 election had passed, new scrutiny by Congress and the media would place some of these individuals - including Huang, Yee and the Lums - and groups like APAC at the center of a massive, perhaps illicit, fund-raising effort by the Clinton-Gore campaign. But as of April 3, 1996, these matters had received little public or press attention, and Brown's death appeared to make them irrelevant. Six hours after the official confirmation of Brown's demise, Pearson quietly announced he was closing his probe of Brown. THE CRASH According to Nolanda Hill, originally Brown was not scheduled to head up the trade mission to the Balkans that ended in his death. She says at the last minute - after Pearson's subpoenas were issued - the White House asked Brown to join the delegation. Given the later questions about DNC fund raising, his own involvement in that effort, and the timing of his death as the Pearson inquiry was getting into gear, it may have been inevitable that questions would be raised about the plane crash itself. Hill herself has alleged, with no real basis other than suspicion, that Brown's plane crash was no accident. Her suspicion may also have something to do with the fact that Brown's death left her holding the bag. Pearson's investigation of her was turned over to the Justice Department, where that inquiry continues today. Hill has also alleged that when she was first informed of Brown's death, an Army undersecretary told her Brown's plane had crashed in the Adriatic and Navy divers were already on the scene . Confusion often reigns when disaster strikes, and later becomes the fodder of conspiracy mills. But legitimate questions about the crash remain outstanding. According to the official Air Force report on the Brown crash - which totals more than 17,000 pages bound in 22 volumes - the government identified three causes. First, a paperwork foul-up had not alerted Air Force personnel that the Dubrovnik airport and its approaches had never been certified as safe by the Air Force. Second, the approach to Runway 12, the one assigned to the Brown plane for landing, had not been designed properly by the Croatians. And third, according to the Air Force, gross pilot error contributed to the crash. The plane's pilots flew on a heading some 10 degrees to the left of their proper course, driving the jet directly into the side of a nearby mountain, St. John's Hill. The Air Force report suggested the pilots likely used improper timing methods to aid navigation and were coordinating their course based on the wrong ground navigation beacon. The pilot of the Brown plane was an "evaluator pilot" for the type of aircraft that crashed, the most senior pilot flying that type of plane in the squadron. He had accumulated nearly 3,000 flight hours, and his co-pilot had even more time flying the same plane. Despite the voluminous Air Force report, critics of the investigation have suggested that the inquiry was compromised from the beginning because investigators began with the assumption the crash was simply an accident. On the day of the crash, and though American rescuers and investigators were hours if not days from the scene, spokesmen at the White House and Pentagon ruled out hostile fire - though the region had been the center of a military conflict of long duration. Almost all initial press reports referred to terrible weather the Brown plane encountered, implying that might have been a cause.  One day after the crash, with no real investigation under way, Secretary of Defense William Perry told the AP that the Brown crash was "a classic sort of accident that good instrumentation should be able to prevent." These initial statements from politicians carried over to the first phase of the Air Force inquiry, which is supposed to treat every military plane crash as suspicious until the investigation is completed. Air Force procedure calls for a two-step investigation. The first inquiry is called a safety board, which convenes to determine if the plane crashed as a result of accident, hostile fire, sabotage, mechanical failure or some other cause. The safety board is nonpunitive and secret. It exists not to assign guilt or suggest punishment, but to gather all the relevant details, evidence and testimony from those involved in the crash - to determine why the plane crashed. Information gathered in this phase can't be used in court, which encourages personnel to come forward to admit mistakes. The second step, according to Air Force regulations, is the convening of an accident/legal investigation, which does assign guilt and exists largely to find out what happened during the crash and its aftermath for legal proceedings. Because of its limited scope, this part of the inquiry can be more stunted in finding the true causes of a specific crash. In Brown's case, the Air Force decided to suspend normal procedures and skipped the use of the primary safety board investigation. The second part of the inquiry, the accident/legal investigation, began immediately after the crash. According to the Air Force, the only other instance in recent memory when the safety board was skipped followed the crash of two Army Blackhawk helicopters in Iraq in the wake of the Gulf War. In essence, the Air Force assumed the crash was an accident from the beginning. Air Force spokesman Maj. Ed Worley said the safety board was skipped because of its secret nature and because the Air Force wanted to make "full public disclosure as soon as possible" to the public and Congress. "This was an odd case," Worley explained. "We were flying the secretary of commerce, and a decision was made early on that for the public interest we would conduct an accident, not a safety board. That was our overriding concern and we were not overlooking something." OTHER ISSUES A number of other unusual facts and anomalies regarding the crash have emerged since issuance of the Air Force's report: # The weather. Initial press reports stated the Brown plane attempted to land in extremely poor weather, including heavy rains, winds and lightning. Newsweek magazine reported that it was "the worst storm in 10 years." Time magazine reported "the worst storm in a decade was raging." Even Hillary Clinton wrote in her weekly column that the plane crashed "in a violent rainstorm." Yet the Air Force investigation report concluded "the weather was not a substantially contributing factor to this mishap." Why was the Air Force so sure? Simple. There was no major storm. According to the report, the weather conditions broadcast by the control tower were basically good: winds were at 14 mph, with only a light to moderate rain. Less than 50 minutes before the Brown plane crashed, an executive jet carrying U.S. Ambassador Peter Galbraith and the premier of Croatia landed at the same airport. The pilot of that plane later said, "I was sure they would land." The only possible hindrance to landing was scattered cloud cover at 500 feet and solid cloud cover at 2,000 feet. Since Dubrovnik airport sits between the Adriatic on one side and a mountain range on another, clouds frequently blanket the mountainside, making an instrument approach a necessity. # Navigation aids. Brown's plane was probably relying on Croatian ground beacons for navigation. In the minutes before Brown's plane crashed, five other planes landed at Dubrovnik without difficulty, and none experienced problems with the beacons. But additional questions about the beacons and the crash will remain unanswered because, as the Air Force acknowledges, airport maintenance chief Niko Junic died by gunshot just three days after the crash and before he could be interviewed by investigators. Within a day of his death, officials determined the death was a suicide. The New York Times reported the 46-year-old Junic was "despondent over a failed romance." A related curious matter was the Air Force report's revelation that a backup portable navigation beacon, formerly stored at the airport, had been stolen before the crash and has never been recovered. Conspiracy buffs have suggested Brown's plane may have been a victim of "spoofing" - aviation slang for what happens when a spurious navigation beacon is used to trick a pilot to change course. # The survivor. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Shelley Kelly, a stewardess, survived the crash for some four hours. Kelly and another stewardess had been seated in a jumpseat at the very rear of the 737. That area was found basically intact after the crash. According to the Air Force, she received first aid from Croatian rescuers but died on the way to a nearby hospital. Her autopsy report states that Kelly died of a broken neck. Related Links Experts differ on Ron Brown's head wound (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) Dec. 3, 1997 Ron Brown conspiracy protest today (UPI) Dec. 24, 1997 NAACP Wants Explanation on Ron Brown's Death (Fox News) Dec. 19, 1997 PIRN-9785: Matt Drudge scoops big media by George Alexander Saturday, Dec. 06, 1997, 8:30 pm U.S. Eastern Time PIRN-9618: Admiral Boorda's suspicious death [as boorda.htm] Press Release Special: Published in Australian Internet Newspaper, "Admiral Boorda" May 22, 1996 Press Release: "Bill Clinton's Body Count" 6/26/96 <hr></blockquote>

by **Pissed Off Cabbie** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 6:12 pm

Political assassination in America, and the denial of it, should keep students of political psychology busy for decades. Wellstone was a prime kill, the kind that keeps things quiet for a long time. No legislator dares to cross the line after that. Clinton's big score was to have been Sen. Inhofe, but the guy lucked out. In the midst of his very aggressive calls for Clinton's impeachment, the propellor fell off of his private plane. He miraculously glided down and landed in a field, and survived what should have killed him. The FAA has no records of a propellor falling off a plane.

by **stickdog99** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 6:47 pm

You ever been up north? I have, many many times. I don't trust his account. Frankly, I think he is playing word games when he discounts the weather conditions. His proof goes: The NTSB didn't fly into the Eveleth airport because of the weather, but rather because of policy. Therefore the weather must have been good. He also cites a pilot who was ten miles away who claims the weather was something any pilot could have handled. But if you have ever been to northern Minnesota you know just how bogus that claim is. The weather was bad, there was freezing rain and icing conditions. Fetzer is a liar. Bullshit. The weather was fine. There was no ice. There was no wind. Visibility was 3-4 miles. The only problem was a trace of low fog. There is NO evidence the weather played ANY factor in this crash. The NTSB itself concluded as much. You are the liar. See for yourself: <a href="http://www.weatherunderground.com/history/airport/KEVM/2002/10/25/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA">www.weatherunderground.co...atename=NA</a> The captain of Sen. Paul Wellstone's fatal flight to Eveleth was so concerned about the weather that he briefly canceled the trip before deciding to go ahead with it, according to new information from crash investigators. That was when Wellstone's pilot (Conry) was considering flying directly into the Duluth Airport, where visibility was far closer to the minimum. Once he got the Eveleth Airport weather information, Conry actually asked another pilot to explain to Wellstone how safe the situation was. Please stop spreading your lies here. Three days earlier, the same pilot accidentally endangered Wellstone by flipping the wrong switch on a takeoff from St. Paul. That mistake by Capt. Richard Conry was corrected by his copilot after the plane pitched downward while trying to gain altitude just 300 feet off the ground. Weird that so many pilots felt it necessary to speak ill of Conry after his tragic death. I've never heard of that happening in any other plane crash. Have you? Also strange that none of the mistakes that Conry made were ever reported to the FAA until well after his death! Wouldn't you agree? Much more on this same subject can be found here: <a href="http://journals.democraticunderground.com/stickdog/55">journals.democraticunderg...tickdog/55</a> The last two fatal crashes of a Beechcraft King Air A100 were planes owned by Beech Transportation Inc. of Eden Prairie. The Wellstone campaign booked the senator's flight through one of Beech's sister enterprises, Aviation Charter. Those two accidents have claimed 10 of the 15 lives lost in A100s since 1982, the data show. Eight of those 15 lives were lost on Wellstone's plane. Which means that only 7 other people had died in King Air A-100 crashes over the entire last twenty years before Wellstone's crash more than doubled that number. But you won't hear this evidence from Fetzer because he is too busy shitting on Paul Wellstone's grave with his lies. Chamber pot, meet chamber kettle. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=stickdog99>stickdog99</A> at: 10/26/06 5:10 pm

by **bvonahsen** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:06 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Much more on this same subject can be found here: journals.democraticunderg...tickdog/55<hr></blockquote> My god, a link to democratic underground, that well of hard scientific data and critical reasoning. uh huh...

by **FourthBase** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:16 pm

Eat shit, tool.

by **wordspeak** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:20 pm

Give it up, dude. You're the one shitting on Wellstone's grave. Moving right along...

by **stickdog99** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 7:28 pm

It's a link to my own post, asshat. But let me reproduce it for you. Wellstone's lead pilot, Conroy, was fully certified by the FAA with flying colors just two days before Wellstone's flight. Conroy passed an extensive proficiency test exactly two days before he piloted the Wellstone crash. So who administered Conroy's last check ride--"an extensive test consisting of an oral test, preflight checks and about two hours in the air, including some maneuvers in which emergency situations are simulated"--and passed him "with flying colors" going so far as to mention to another tester what a good pilot Conry was? Or wouldn't it make any sense to interview the person most qualified to assess Conry's aviation proficiency the day of the crash? The article filled with the puzzling criticism of Dick Conroy and Michael Guess, Wellstone's two pilots who flew for Aviation Charter, is here: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050208075946/http://www.startribune.com/stories/1752/3736949.html">web.archive.org/web/20050...36949.html</a> I've now read well over 1,000 fatality NTSB reports and I've never once read of a single pilot talking in this harsh manner about his dead colleague(s). Note that none of these pilots ever reported a single incident about Conry's profound negligence, not even to their employer, until well after Conry crashed his plane into the ground at a steep 25 degree angle, killing himself and seven innocent souls (including a US Senator) because of his sheer and obvious incompetence, if we are to believe all of these accusers. Do these accusers realize that their conspiracy of silence about Conry's malpractice makes all of them culpable for the deaths of a US Senator and five other innocent passengers? Are their suddenly guilty consciences forcing them to come forward now? Are they trying to make good by offering all their personal wealth and assets to the surviving relatives of the passengers whose horrible and avoidable death they are so directly responsible for? Is the FAA going to revoke their pilot licenses, censure them or discipline them in any way for letting a menace like Conry fly solo or first in command day after day after day? How many of these individuals still work as pilots? How do they think their new employers will react when they read that these pilots and instructors caused their former charter airline employer to become liable -- to the tune of over 20 million dollars -- for the wrongful deaths of 6 passengers, including a US Senator, by covering up the obvious and highly dangerous incompetence of a colleague who obviously had no business flying himself around, much less the most famous and publicly celebrated individual who regularly booked flights with Aviation Charter? Did any of these accusers so much as make an entry into their flight logs about all of their hair raising experiences flying with Conroy? Did any of these accusers ever request not to be paired on flights with Conry, fearing for their own lives and safety? ***** First, let's examine the strange case of Chad Kozloski: In the latter case, Aviation Charter copilot Chad Kozloski said he was at the controls of a Wellstone flight sometime last summer when he let Conry fly while he turned around to talk to Wellstone. "Kozloski turned around for 10 seconds to talk to the senator and when he turned back, he had to take over the airplane," the report said. "The airplane was rolling through 45 degrees of bank and descending at 1,000 feet per minute." Mike Lindberg, an attorney for Aviation Charter owners Roger and Shirley Wikner, said the Wikners were not aware of the new allegations. "None of the allegations that are now being made were ever brought to the company's management before the accident," Lindberg said. 1) Since when do second-in-command pilots "let" first-in-command pilots fly? 2) Why didn't Mr. Kozloski file a report about Conry's outrageous and dangerous incompetence with the FAA or at least with his employer? 3) Wellstone's fear of flying was notorious. Why did he feel so comfortable with a pilot who was apt to put a King Air into a dive and roll whenever he was left alone at the controls for 10 seconds? 4) I'm sure Kozloski, Conry and/or Aviation Charter have flight logs that list the other passengers on this dreadful flight. Are any of them still alive? If so, can any of them corroborate this frightful story? 5) Can we expect the FAA to discipline Mr. Kozloski for not reporting this dangerous breach of safety? Will he be censured by the FAA? Will his pilot license be revoked? 6) Does Kozloski realize that his failure to report Conroy's egregiously dangerous error makes him culpable for the deaths of 6 innocent passengers on a flight booked with the company he currently works for? How would he feel about being named as a co-defendant along with the principles of Aviation Charter in a wrongful death lawsuit? 7) When Kozlowski made this statement, was he planning to testify for the lawyers of the dead passengers and against the company for whom he worked? How did he think his employers would react to the fact that their asses are already toast in any putative court case because he told the NTSB about an egregious pilot error that he never thought to report to them at the time? Does he realize that the fact that he waited until 8 people were dead to report this incident is more than grounds for his immediate termination? 8) Conry's log books stated that he was always the controlling pilot whenever he was flying Wellstone, and that he allowed the copilots to fly only the passenger-less legs of these flights. Do Conroy's and Kozloski's log books confirm that Kozloski was in fact the controlling pilot on the flight in question? How about any ATC tapes? 9) Are there any existing radar tracking data of the flight in question? If so, are these data consistent with Kozloski's description of Conry's supposed dive and roll? ***** On to the far stranger case of, Oliver Koski, former Aviation Charter Director of Operations: At the company responsible for the flights, a supervisor knew that some pilots considered Conry to be below average, forgetful and prone to random errors, the NTSB said. Oliver Koski, a ground instructor and a former operations director at Aviation Charter, said Conry's performance was "a little bit below average" on written quizzes. The supervisor, pilot instructor Oliver Koski, told investigators that Conry's copilot on Wellstone's fatal flight, Michael Guess, needed extra instruction during ground training and that the company's "weakest link" in training regarding cockpit coordination was between captain and copilot. Koski also said he spent "extra time" working with Guess on ground school lessons. "He called Guess 'borderline,' " the NTSB report said. He said Conry tended to let his copilots fly "all the time" and probably would not have been at the controls when the plane crashed. After interviewing Koski, investigators also wrote: "Other pilots commented that Conry was below average. That sounded like a consensus opinion but no specifics were given. He had heard that Conry was forgetful and made random errors." Koski told investigators that Conry "did not fly like a seasoned pilot" even though he claimed to have the hours of a seasoned pilot. Koski told investigators that he rated the company's standardization as "fair." He said he suspected some pilots were following standard procedures, while others were not. OK, now let's examine this a bit deeper. Imagine that you were the Director of Operations for a charter airline and the NTSB asked you to answer some questions about a former colleague of yours who just died in a tragic plane crash every media outlet and expert in the world is chalking up to bad weather. Would you tell the NTSB investigators that this former pilot, who flew for at least several months at your whim and directly under your charge, was: 1) below average, 2) forgetful, 3) prone to random errors, 4) unable to fly like a seasoned pilot, and 5) apt to let his inexperienced, "borderline, weakest link" copilot land whenever he was transporting his most important passengers? Furthermore, would you describe the standardization of the charter airline company at which you yourself served as Director of Operations for many years including the time period in question as "fair"? Conry joined Aviation Charter in April 2001 and Guess joined Aviation Charter in June 2001. Now consider that Koski was the Director of Operations at Aviation Charter when both Conry and Guess were hired and initially trained and evaluated. So Koski himself both hired and approved for scores of commercial passenger flights a lead pilot whom Koski himself describes as "below average, forgetful, prone to random errors, and unable to fly like a seasoned pilot" and a co-pilot whom Koski himself describes as "borderline and the company's weakest link." Then Koski continued to serve as their direct supervisors, allowing the horrendously incompetent Conry to ferry hundreds of innocent passengers (with a US Senator aboard on dozens of these trips) across the fearsome, typically intemperate skies of Minnesota -- often scheduling him together with a "borderline" copilot -- even though he knew Conry would almost certainly let "the company's weakest link" handle all of the most critical and dangerous flight duties. Even as other pilots were constantly reporting to him (but not to the FAA or supposedly anyone else in his company's management team) that Conry was "below average", "forgetful", and prone to make "random errors"? ***** And how about the ever changing stories Mark Schmidt/Schmit? Former Aviation Charter pilot Mark Schmidt contacted investigators with another story about Conry. According to the report, Schmidt said that he observed Conry and a copilot during takeoff and that their plane "came over the top of Executive Aviation in a 60-degree bank and it looked like they were going to take out the tower." Schmidt linked the incident to Conry's throttle technique. He said he did not know whether any kind of report was filed. 1) Doesn't this type of dangerous near miss require the filing of an NTSB incident report? 2) Pray tell, why didn't Mark think such an important illustration of Conry's obvious incompetence was topical when he talked to the media about Conry in November? From a November, 2002 story: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050207212929/http://www.startribune.com/stories/1752/3420441.html">web.archive.org/web/20050...20441.html</a> Mark Schmit, a former Executive Aviation pilot, said Conry told him he had flown for American Eagle. "I remember him telling me he flew ATRs for American Eagle," said Schmit, who left the company in January. "Which model, he never said. Just generally, ATRs." "He never was more elaborate than that," added Schmit, who said he flew only once with Conry while at Executive Aviation but said he talked with him casually at the company's offices. Schmit said he worked at Executive Aviation for a little more than a year. 3) So Mark "links" Conry's supposed but unreported "60-degree bank" that "looked like they were going to take out" an ATC tower to "Conry's throttle technique." But didn't Conry have a copilot in that plane? And didn't Aviation Charter's Director of Operations assure us that Conry let his copilots fly "all the time"? 4) Mark told the Star Tribune that he "flew only once with Conry." But since Conry always let the other pilot fly, when did Mark have a chance to observe Conroy's supposedly very nearly homicidal throttle technique? ***** And what are we to make of this information? Is it all false? <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030903031329/http://www.airsafetyonline.com/cgi-bin/news/exec/view.cgi?archive=2&num=22">web.archive.org/web/20030...e=2&num=22</a> Conry grew up flying with his father and had his own plane by the early 1980s. He pursued a full-time flying job after real estate fraud charges ended his construction business. According to Executive Aviation, which hired him in April 2001, Conry had logged just under 5,200 hours of flying time. He had an airline transport pilot certification, the highest possible rating. Guess, the co-pilot, was certified as a commercial pilot and had about 650 flight hours. Rod Ahlsten, who gives pilots "check rides" part time at Executive Aviation, said he was told Conry was a good pilot. Twice a year, pilots take check rides, an extensive test consisting of an oral test, preflight checks and about two hours in the air, including some maneuvers in which emergency situations are simulated. Conry passed his check ride the week of the crash, and Ahlsten spoke to the pilot who conducted Conry's test. "I've heard nothing but good about his flying skills," Ahlsten said. Several people who flew with Conry praised him, including Curt Anderson, a carpenter for Conry's defunct development business. Anderson said Conry also owned a stunt plane, in which he could fly upside down and perform loops. But he left the stunts behind when flying his usual single and double propeller planes, said Anderson, who flew with Conry about 40 times. "His dream after construction was to fly," Anderson said. "He just wanted to be in the air. It's tough to believe he crashed." ***** And what about this information? All false as well?: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20050207212929/http://www.startribune.com/stories/1752/3420441.html">web.archive.org/web/20050...20441.html</a> "His training record with us is impeccable," Wikner said. "Some very important people wanted him as their pilot. They liked what he did. They liked the way he handled the airplane." Conry had experience flying private planes, and he owned planes over the years. Federal Aviation Administration records show that in 1989, Conry obtained an air transport pilot rating, the highest rating a commercial pilot can get and one that requires at least 1,500 hours of flying time. That rating requires a minimum of 250 hours as captain or co-pilot, among other requirements. He also was licensed to fly single-engine and multiengine, land-based airplanes and single-engine seaplanes, records show. James Hurd, a business associate of Conry's dating back 25 years, said in an interview that Conry flew him about 50 times on business and recreational trips throughout the Midwest and Canada in the time he knew him. On those trips, he said Conry flew him in a single-engine Cessna. "I trusted him totally as a pilot," Hurd said. "He was unbelievably careful. Never cut a corner. I can't say strongly enough what a good pilot he was." "Dick was the most careful person," he said, recalling all the flights he had taken with Conry. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=stickdog99>stickdog99</A> at: 10/26/06 5:49 pm

by **FourthBase** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 11:31 am

[crickets] <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/laugh.gif ALT=":lol">

4th anniversary of Wellston's plane crash

Re: 4th anniversary of Wellston's plane crash

Re: Ron Brown's crash had similar attributes.

Wellstone In 2008

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bvonahsen,

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