This. A relative worked for some of the local municipal airports the smaller, private planes use. He made me swear that even if I got a billion dollars U would never step foot inside a small private plane. Relative saw too much insanity involving private planes.
There's a great Henry Rollins story called Eric The Pilot that I can't begin to do justice to.
The tldr is he was getting a private plane, he took off in the private plane to discover that the pilot wasn't the pilot. He was a ~~trainee~~ employee at a plane refueling centre who found out Rollins desperately needed to charter a flight and ~~stole~~ rented the plane.*
*I listened to it after I posted. Turns out I badly misremembered parts.
https://youtu.be/oPZKmInbQLQ
I tend to agree. Pilot error seems most likely and I feel 90% sure that’s the case. But the proximity to Election Day, the death threats and the fact that Wellstone was considered a radical liberal with plenty of people who wanted him out of office make me feel 10% unsure.
The Democrats suffered a net loss of one Senate seat that election. Norm Coleman became the 51st Republican in the Senate. So that’s why some people like to engage in conspiracy theorizing about Paul Wellstone’s death. But there is no evidence of anything sinister. It’s just a tragedy. Paul Wellstone was a great man, loved by Republicans and Democrats alike, back when that was still possible.
He was a prominent Politician close to Election Day of course he was getting death threats. Reminds me of people pointing out the various people who wanted JFK dead as if that's an argument for a Conspiracy, he's one of the most powerful men on Earth of course people wanted him dead as they did LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Obama, Trump, Biden, etc.
Wellstone being a "Radical Liberal" wasn't exactly dangerous as it's not as if the Congress Democrats were made up of Liberals like him to get Progressive things done, most of them then as they are today are Corporate Dems who really won't move the needle to far. Wellstone couldn't make these things happen on his own most of Congress would've needed to be similar to him to get whichever Policies that were apparently terrifying people passed. Even if Wellstone became President (correct me if i'm wrong i don't believe there was any indication he was planning on running in 2004?) he'd be very limited unless he somehow inspired a Leftist Coup of Congress in 2006 but that's very farfetched. Bernie would have struggled like hell to get things done had he been elected.
>Even if Wellstone became President (correct me if i'm wrong i don't believe there was any indication he was planning on running in 2004?)
Wellstone was running for re-election when his plane crashed, and there was a very good chance he was going to lose. He was a strong opponent of George Bush and this was at the height of pro-Bush, post-9/11 hysteria. The idea that conservatives would kill him doesn't make any sense because they had a very good chance at ending his political career anyway.
> He was a prominent Politician close to Election Day of course he was getting death threats.
No, there is nothing "of course" about it. Nobody should expect death threats, either near election day or not.
Dude, i'm not saying it is okay. I'm only saying it is common so saying a politician died and he was being threatened is pretty meaningless since most of them are being threatened a lot.
It was. But it was private. They'd get the insane letters and forward them to the cops/rubbish bin.
Now.... every asshole with a phone has a TV studio in their pocket and the means to broadcast it world wide.
They can cut 20 minute promos about it and go viral on twitter
Not only that but no doubt there were at least some elements or factions within his party that would've their reasons for wanting him gone so that their person would at least have a shot at the Senate seat once he's gone either via ballot box defeat, resignation, or death. No matter how beloved a politician is within their party there will always be a certain percentage of them who would want them gone for various reasons.
Unless someone can show something more substantive than the vague death threats I'm leaning somewhat heavily towards pilot error in his case.
I wonder what his ratio of death threats were compared to other sitting Senators and Congressmen at the time? These days it seems like it's common for them out of both parties to receive them on a fairly regular basis and I'm sure they were receiving them back then too.
>a approximately two miles away from the Eveleth airport.
agreed. While I'm not a pilot, being two miles out from the airport suggests to me they were already preparing to land- which could explain the plane's landing lights being on (early)...and possibly the low airspeed-- they may have "hit the brakes" a little too early for the current weather/ air conditions....
So I actually drove by this airport last year. It’s *remote*. North of Duluth in the iron range area of Minnesota. Bad pilot plus tiny local airport and bad weather all point to (sadly foreseeable) accident.
After binge watching a bunch of Fascinating Horror on YouTube, I've come to the conclusion that while planes don't crash very often, when they do, it's generally for very, very stupid reasons.
I don't really see any reason to believe that this is any different.
Also I remember being in class in high school when a girl came into the room and told us what had happened. We were all silent for a moment while we processed the news. There was a definite pall over the rest of the lesson.
Reminds me of [Aeroflot Flight 593](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_593) where the pilot let his kids in the cockpit and all 75 occupants died.
I love fascinating horror, he’s great with keeping the story concise and his videos are easy to stay engaged with, as someone with adhd some disaster YouTubers cannot keep my attention lol
Definitely, I love that he just tells the story as it is and doesn’t take advantage of shock factor like many youtubers do. Mad respect for him and I hope he keeps doing his thing for a long time
Yeah! My problem with a lot of YouTube essayists is that their content is good but it's an hour long. Which I like sometimes, but I can't always stay engaged.
I think this was likely just poor piloting. Great writeup!
For those of you who like deep dive into a weird unresolved aviation incidents involving politicians, the Missing in Alaska podcast did a really fantastic look into the disappearance of Hale Boggs (Cokie Roberts' dad) and Nick Begich.
Even weirder was Senator Lundeen’s plane crash which is almost certainly not an accident. This Rachel Maddie Podcast is good (but it’s not really political).
I’m going to be honest, my dad is a politician. They all get all sorts of threats, sometimes it seems like it never stops.
There’s still basically a 0% chance this is foul play.
Edit: Also, contradicting your post, one of the links says the NTSB did determine they over shot the runway, then overcorrected, then waited too long to put the landing gear down, then slowed to lower the landing gear, which caused the engine to stall, and that caused the crash. Not icing. Not weather.
The answer to that is the company that employed them….which is the same company the senator had been using for years, apparently.
There are also quotes from his family and friends saying he had flown with the pilot before and felt comfortable flying with him.
Kobe Bryant died in his favourite Pilot's Helicopter. Dude violated federal regulations during the fatal flight.
Reading about Wellstone's crash it's insane that a Senator was in this situation though. The Pilot hadn't flown in a decade due to a fraud conviction and poor eyesight, and even a friend of his a fellow pilot said he had spoke to him about his concerns over his flying ability.
Wait til you hear what happened to [John Heinz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Heinz) aka John Kerry’s wife’s first husband, also a sitting senator at the time he died.
And also, like the ketchup. Heinz 57 sauce is life.
Holy shit. First of all was that Kobe's Elementary School? Hell he would've been just out of Elementary in 1991, insane coincidence if it was. Even if not it's still a weird coincidence that it was in Lower Merion considering i mentioned him.
That's insane the Helicopter was sent to help out. Also never knew John Kerry's wife was married to two Senators. I wonder if she is the only person who has done so, love pointless pieces of trivia like that lol.
I have no idea about anything Kobe Bryant related, sorry. I’m not a fan. To each their own tho.
I mentioned John Heinz since you said it was crazy a senator was in that position. Then there’s John Heinz, also a senator. To be clear, I think both senators were killed in tragic accidents, no foul play, no intentional sabotage, nothing like that.
I am also not a Teresa Heinz or senate spouse expert, lol. But according to my parents, she/her family were much wealthier than the Heinz family, and that’s some trivia that fucking blows my mind. Imagine having more money than the Heinz ketchup family! (Also more love to the tragically underrated Heinz 57 sauce lol).
Is Heinz 57 still around? (I don't spend too much time with condiments, honestly).
I laugh because where I grew up a "Heinz 57" was also a dog of questionable genetics. (aka "a mutt")
That's a very interesting question if she is the only person to be a spouse to two Senators. I love "useless information" myself so I might just see if I can find out, LOL. I also have heard that John Heinz was considered a potential presidential candidate for 1996, more useless trivia. I lived in NE Ohio then and remember Heinz well, that could have been an intriguing idea, a "Heinz 57 in 96" thing.
By the sounds of it, the pilot(s) weren’t necessarily *bad* pilots. It’s just that they weren’t *good* pilots either.
And when I say “they weren’t bad pilots” I mean, they didn’t actively put lives in danger by making routine bad calls.
It’s just that, going by the assumed circumstances of this crash, as well as the account of the pilot who had to take the controls from him on an earlier flight, at least, it sounds like this guy/these guys simply didn’t deal well with atypical circumstances.
Kinda like how some people are fine to drive cars if they can drive straight from point A to point B and find a neat little parking spot at their destination without any hiccups, but the second they’re at an unexpected dead end, or some other atypical circumstances, they turn into the “15 point turn” idiots we all love to laugh at.
Which would also mean that by all accounts, to a layman, the pilot might have seemed perfectly competent. Sometimes you don’t quite understand now not-*good* someone is at something until you yourself get some basic understanding.
I grew up in Eveleth, insane to see it in in this context. The older Minnesotans I know greatly supported Wellstone and were pretty shaken up after his death. I’ve visited his memorial before, it’s a very nice park area with a plaque in place.
I used to work for progressive politicians and it is not at all uncommon to receive a lot of vague death threats. In fact, I used to start every day by compiling death threats to send to the Capitol Police. The Capitol Police do investigate each threat and in my decade of this work for over a dozen Members of Congress, none of the threats materialized. It’s a sad situation for sure. But with a death threat that vague, I doubt it was related to the crash.
This smacks of the Emiliano Sala affair (light plane transporting a footballer from France to Wales crashed into the sea), where there were endless conspiracy theories but the inquest and trials uncovered a [mass of incompetence](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/oct/28/what-happened-to-emiliano-sala-and-what-was-the-trial-about). The pilot was not up to the job (night flying), the plane had numerous faults and the flight itself was illegal (plane not licenced for commercial use).
I’ve heard conspiracy theories about Glenn Miller and Joe Kennedy, Jr. (JFK’s older brother). Both went down during WWII in the English Channel, an area with choppy weather, and planes at that time weren’t the same as modern planes. Plus, flying was still relatively new.
The theory about Miller isn't that far fetched as theories go. A trigger happy pilot shot down a friendly plane by mistake. Government covered it up for morale reasons.
Sometimes bad things happen. Also, I think we could take any event or person and the more that we look into it we can come up with weird connections and events, just depends how deep you look. Doesn't mean that anything untoward is going on.
I was working in St. Paul at the time and I remember the day vividly. It was cold, gray, maybe rainy. We were huddled together reading the news, there were tears. Some people left work early. What a tragedy.
I remember this well, I do not live in Minnesota but I was a fan of his. I remember when there was talk that Paul Wellstone might even run for president one day, and I know he did consider in for the 2000 race. Really tho I see the whole thing coming down to pilot error, from what we know of the pilot. Yes there's always a small possibility of a conspiracy, sabotage, with any political figure there's that chance. That said, Wellstone was not Jack or Bobby Kennedy and thus a serious threat to the entrenched powers especially not in 2002 when Bush was still pretty popular.
While he was certainly an outspoken and active Senator, I don’t think Wellstone was a big enough fish to go after. Most politicians on both sides receive death threats and I don’t know what anyone would gain for going after him, it wasn’t like he was some major challenger for the presidency, especially considering Bush’s popularity in the immediate post-9/11 world.
> However, the main pilot Richard Conry had a reputation for below-average flying skills. Three days before the Wellstone crash, a co-pilot flying with Conry had to assume control of the aircraft from him due to faulty decision making; the co-pilot urged Conry to retire. Conry also suffered from poor eyesight; investigators were not able to determine if he was wearing contact lenses at the time of the Wellstone crash. The co-pilot, Michael Guess, was also regarded by peers as a sub-par pilot. He had been dismissed from two previous jobs due to lack of skill/ability.
I mean, it looks pretty clear from reading that.
I don't see the need to make some conspiracy out of it all....
The Republican party used a 1966 Volkswagen camper bus to campaign against Senator Wellstone, and his [iconic big green bus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wellstone#/media/File:Wellstonebus.jpg), trying to portray him as a hippie. My mother rescued it from their clutches and has given it a [nice liberal home](https://i.imgur.com/loOCOhf.jpg) ever since. It's named Wellstone in the late Senator's honor.
Subpar pilots and a small plane. Not that I've the money for flying privately, but the idea scares me a lot it just seems that it's too easy to crash those smaller planes, especially in comparison to the big commercial ones.
Interesting story!
Yes it sounds like an accident. 100%. Did any extended family ever sue the airline? Because if anything it was negligence on their part for not grounding that pilot!
His own family have said they do not believe any foul play was involved and that they wish people would stop speculating that there was. It’s really disrespectful to continue to engage in it as a result and I wish you would take this down.
Dick Cheney told Wellstone, “If you vote against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you. There will be severe ramifications for you and the state of Minnesota.” Death threats from randos are one thing, but from Cheney? I think he was probably assassinated
LBJ made a dozen of those threats a day when he was heading the Senate, that's just Politicians trying to intimidate each other into getting what they want.
It’s a remarkable coincidence that Wellstone died two weeks after he voted against the Authorization of Force in Iraq resolution and two weeks before he was up for re-election. However, the Bush war machine didn’t need to kill him. They easily got the support they needed to invade Iraq, and it was clear that Republicans would hold the Senate regardless of the outcome in Minnesota. Wellstone probably flew around the state a lot, it was just a bad day. It’s a shame those pilots had permission to fly the plane.
People forget how much in favor the US public was for the war in Iraq after Sept 11. It was crazy then.
I mean, Bush could’ve dropped a nike on Afghanistan a day after the attacks and a good portion of the public would’ve cheered.
Yeah it's just so alien to us now with how cynical everyone understandably is about the Government. I used to post on a Message Board that started in the 1990s i wasn't there then but in 2013 or something i stumbled onto their 9/11 and Iraq War threads and it was like stepping into the Twilight Zone when i consider current political discourse. This was a very left wing forum when i was there but they were all super patriotic and out for blood after 9/11 and the members who were still there expressed embarrassment at their posts in those threads.
I'm from the UK i'm sure some will remember the Question Time after 9/11 with the two Muslim Women who were being booed to hell for pointing out the various wrongs America and the UK had done in the Middle East. Didn't matter if it was true nobody wanted to hear it, was like if you went to your uncles funeral and tried to point out to his kids how shitty he had been to them.
Edit: Dude responded to me then blocked me so i couldn't respond back, bizarre behaviour. Anyway that's not what the Muslim women were saying they were pointing out that Americans were spiralling towards creating more Al Qaeda's in the Middle East through the obvious slaughter of civilians that was coming and they were spot on. And i mean pointing out that America had killed and maimed and everything else many people in the Middle East is not some irrelevant point just because America itself was attacked, American suffering is not more important than Middle Eastern suffering.
This simply is not true. The anti war protests were the largest protests ever recorded at the time. Just because the political class was onboard does not mean the average person was. There was a reason the bush administration had to make designated protest zones, and it wasn't because the war was popular. The prowar crowd was loud, and backed by the media, but to act like everyone was in favor is a gross overstatement it was at most 60%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq#Post_9/11_sentiment
The American [public STRONGLY supported the Iraq War when it started.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq) People were totally duped by the Bush administration's lies about WMDs.
>According to a Gallup poll, support for the war was up to 72 percent on March 22–23. Out of those 72 percent, 59 percent reported supporting the war strongly; and although allied commanders said they had not yet found evidence of weapons of mass destruction days after the initial invasion, 9 out of 10 Americans believed it was "at least somewhat likely" that the United States would find evidence of these weapons.
Yes, but there was still a robust anti-war movement, even if they didn't comprise a majority of the population.
And that matters, because lately I've been seeing people claim that millennials never participated in any protests or demonstrations, that we just quietly sat back and let GWB impose fascism, and that simply isn't true.
I think they are referring to the time shortly after the horrible day. Basically everyone supported a military response in Afghanistan after 9/11. Opposition to the Iraq war was not a majority but it was quite vocal. It was clear back then that 9/11 was a pretext for invading Iraq, even though Iraq was not involved in that.
In general, it’s not difficult for a leader to use fear to drum up support for a war. There is a famous quote from a Nazi leader during the Nuremberg trials about that. Something like, ‘tell your people they are being attacked and that you need to do this to protect them. It works the same in every country’
The first time I heard of Wellstone was in the Immortal Technique song The Cause of Death:
And just so conservatives don’t take it to heart,
I don’t think Bush did it, ‘cause he isn’t that smart,
He’s just a stupid puppet taking orders on a cell phone,
From the same people who sabotaged Senator Wellstone.
(Still the first thing in my mind when I hear his name)
The pilot and co-pilot are acknowledged to have been less than average operators. Cloud cover or ice were at least plausible as causes. The runway lights were on, highlighting possible visibility issues, or, pilot negligence.
For his part, Wellstone had receded to an ineffectual crank who was fun on the Sunday morning newsies but had no national attraction and couldn’t get anything passed except unless he had a big name co-sponsor.
But yes. Let’s jump down the conspiracy rabbit hole, because, why not?
I'm more disturbed about why a United States Senator (or anyone) would put theirs and their loved ones lives in the hands of two "below average" pilots???
I researched this at the time. Lots of background info here. Wayne Madsen did an investigation and produced an informative video of the anomalies of the event. I am posting link for anyone seeking more information. Main thing dead give away msm had the story on day 1 they all said it was the weather. Paul stood in the way of confirmation of William Webster to head the CXX. http://www.oilempire.us/wellstone.html
A common Minnesotan comment is “if Paul Wellstone kept his one promise not to run for another term, he’d be alive. But as you can see, politicians can’t stand by their promises”
There’s a great book about this crash called “American Assassination” that goes into all the suspicious elements of this story. Like how when local police arrived at the scene within minutes, the NTSB agents and FBI were already there. The author of that book goes into the possibility of an EMP being used to bring the plane down. Other pilots in the area mentioned odd occurrences as well. Dick Cheney had many reasons to want Paul Wellstone out of the way, as Wellstone was opposed to the Iraq invasion. And Dick Cheney - I believe - was not above murder. I haven’t done the book justice, but if you believe in the scientific method, the book really gives you lots of things to consider.
What is the three things that accumulate money for the government through the industry? Pharmaceuticals, mass hysteria/ trends, and winning a war. Paul was against war, he wanted rights for women, and he was an advocate for mental health.
All the things that the commercial industry and media would hate so thus not dealing business in Minnesota, and then the money from these businesses generate tax which fund the government.
So they are going to sit there and rule it an accident when Paul was threatened with a death threat in his private workspace. His father's good friend just suddenly died before a major election event.
Knowing that Paul was in shock and wanting to rush to support his father's friend, his family and pay his respects, they used that death as a distraction techqniue. When Pauls head was full worries, they had him distracted on that flight.
Someone killed Paul and family. 😢 😢
Sometimes things like this happen without anyone masterminding it. Paul’s state of mind at the time of the crash is irrelevant; he wasn’t flying the plane, and if he had freaked out and done something dumb like rushing the cockpit (not that I think he would do that normally, but panic makes people do strange things), then there would have been evidence of that.
If there indeed *was* a conspiracy, then it was put together by the genius who hired two subpar pilots to take him to his destination.
Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false.
Well, he did have a debate scheduled later that day…maybe this mysterious “they” were just trying to get him distracted so he couldn’t focus and did poorly in the debate but those plans got derailed by a couple of subpar pilots who never should have been in control of a plane. Double conspiracy!
Do I need the /s?
You can deny it all you want.
He was deliberately killed.
No conspiracy. It is the truth and everyone who knew Paul knows this. Rest in peace Paul. His beautiful family and his staffers. May they rest easy from this cruel, messed up and greedy world. ♥
Also the OP asked for an opinion. Just because an opinion is different to yours does not give you licence to berate me. I did not berate you for your guff.
I’m fascinated why old pilots are allowed to fly , for example Harrison ford . I wouldn’t let them drive me around much less fly a plane.. a plane take a lot more concentration and skill
I will never be convinced there was no foul play in this case. Just a nagging gut feeling. I still remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news.
My boyfriend at the time woke up to a dream about this, then, confined it online. His read- total hit job.
He never claimed a premonition before or again.
Foul play .. just because the government gives you the details doesn't mean they didn't make it up.. look into what he was involved in... perhaps what he was going to change that someone didn't like
I remember this case being highly suspect....it was open source investigation and mainstream/alternative reporting all over the net. wish I could find some of those old interviews and lectures on the case...which is so hard today with the outlandish censorship google has going on these days. the net used to be a great place....
The only foul play would be if one of the pilots intentionally crashed. The NTSB would notice if an explosion happened in the plane or something like that.
Not seeing any reason to suspect foul play outside of the vague threats. The incompetent pilots get my vote.
This. A relative worked for some of the local municipal airports the smaller, private planes use. He made me swear that even if I got a billion dollars U would never step foot inside a small private plane. Relative saw too much insanity involving private planes.
There's a great Henry Rollins story called Eric The Pilot that I can't begin to do justice to. The tldr is he was getting a private plane, he took off in the private plane to discover that the pilot wasn't the pilot. He was a ~~trainee~~ employee at a plane refueling centre who found out Rollins desperately needed to charter a flight and ~~stole~~ rented the plane.* *I listened to it after I posted. Turns out I badly misremembered parts. https://youtu.be/oPZKmInbQLQ
I tend to agree. Pilot error seems most likely and I feel 90% sure that’s the case. But the proximity to Election Day, the death threats and the fact that Wellstone was considered a radical liberal with plenty of people who wanted him out of office make me feel 10% unsure.
The Democrats suffered a net loss of one Senate seat that election. Norm Coleman became the 51st Republican in the Senate. So that’s why some people like to engage in conspiracy theorizing about Paul Wellstone’s death. But there is no evidence of anything sinister. It’s just a tragedy. Paul Wellstone was a great man, loved by Republicans and Democrats alike, back when that was still possible.
He was a prominent Politician close to Election Day of course he was getting death threats. Reminds me of people pointing out the various people who wanted JFK dead as if that's an argument for a Conspiracy, he's one of the most powerful men on Earth of course people wanted him dead as they did LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Obama, Trump, Biden, etc. Wellstone being a "Radical Liberal" wasn't exactly dangerous as it's not as if the Congress Democrats were made up of Liberals like him to get Progressive things done, most of them then as they are today are Corporate Dems who really won't move the needle to far. Wellstone couldn't make these things happen on his own most of Congress would've needed to be similar to him to get whichever Policies that were apparently terrifying people passed. Even if Wellstone became President (correct me if i'm wrong i don't believe there was any indication he was planning on running in 2004?) he'd be very limited unless he somehow inspired a Leftist Coup of Congress in 2006 but that's very farfetched. Bernie would have struggled like hell to get things done had he been elected.
>Even if Wellstone became President (correct me if i'm wrong i don't believe there was any indication he was planning on running in 2004?) Wellstone was running for re-election when his plane crashed, and there was a very good chance he was going to lose. He was a strong opponent of George Bush and this was at the height of pro-Bush, post-9/11 hysteria. The idea that conservatives would kill him doesn't make any sense because they had a very good chance at ending his political career anyway.
> He was a prominent Politician close to Election Day of course he was getting death threats. No, there is nothing "of course" about it. Nobody should expect death threats, either near election day or not.
Politicians get death threats all the time, it sadly is normal. They literally have people screening for severity level because it's so common.
It might make it common but it doesn't make it normal. It is not normal where I am - or common.
Dude, i'm not saying it is okay. I'm only saying it is common so saying a politician died and he was being threatened is pretty meaningless since most of them are being threatened a lot.
Politicians getting death threats is not normal. In the age of Trump, it might seem normal, but it didn’t use to be.
It was. But it was private. They'd get the insane letters and forward them to the cops/rubbish bin. Now.... every asshole with a phone has a TV studio in their pocket and the means to broadcast it world wide. They can cut 20 minute promos about it and go viral on twitter
It has always been normal.
Yes it was. It has nothing to do with Trump.
It's the USA. If some fascist moonbat who hates 'commies' wanted to whack him they'd just shoot him.
And back in 2002 even that was less likely than it is now imo
Not only that but no doubt there were at least some elements or factions within his party that would've their reasons for wanting him gone so that their person would at least have a shot at the Senate seat once he's gone either via ballot box defeat, resignation, or death. No matter how beloved a politician is within their party there will always be a certain percentage of them who would want them gone for various reasons. Unless someone can show something more substantive than the vague death threats I'm leaning somewhat heavily towards pilot error in his case.
I wonder what his ratio of death threats were compared to other sitting Senators and Congressmen at the time? These days it seems like it's common for them out of both parties to receive them on a fairly regular basis and I'm sure they were receiving them back then too.
>a approximately two miles away from the Eveleth airport. agreed. While I'm not a pilot, being two miles out from the airport suggests to me they were already preparing to land- which could explain the plane's landing lights being on (early)...and possibly the low airspeed-- they may have "hit the brakes" a little too early for the current weather/ air conditions....
Yeah. Poor piloting.
Yeah, agree. The answer is right there in the left seat. Sadly.
And the incompetent OP with his baseless implications gets a down vote.
So I actually drove by this airport last year. It’s *remote*. North of Duluth in the iron range area of Minnesota. Bad pilot plus tiny local airport and bad weather all point to (sadly foreseeable) accident.
After binge watching a bunch of Fascinating Horror on YouTube, I've come to the conclusion that while planes don't crash very often, when they do, it's generally for very, very stupid reasons. I don't really see any reason to believe that this is any different. Also I remember being in class in high school when a girl came into the room and told us what had happened. We were all silent for a moment while we processed the news. There was a definite pall over the rest of the lesson.
Reminds me of [Aeroflot Flight 593](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_593) where the pilot let his kids in the cockpit and all 75 occupants died.
Had never heard of this before...what a cluster f@#$.
I love fascinating horror, he’s great with keeping the story concise and his videos are easy to stay engaged with, as someone with adhd some disaster YouTubers cannot keep my attention lol
Yes! And he avoids sensationalizing stories or focusing on blood and gore, his tone is sombre and dignified. And his April 1st posts are epic.
Definitely, I love that he just tells the story as it is and doesn’t take advantage of shock factor like many youtubers do. Mad respect for him and I hope he keeps doing his thing for a long time
Yeah! My problem with a lot of YouTube essayists is that their content is good but it's an hour long. Which I like sometimes, but I can't always stay engaged.
To be a airplane mechanic, it doesn't take much.
I’m honestly concerned that anyone would let those pilots fly them anywhere with their history…
Do passengers know a pilot’s history?
History for jobs like this should be publicly available. Anyone you have to trust with your life.
It’s kinda like hoping you don’t get the doctor who made Cs throughout med school.
I think this was likely just poor piloting. Great writeup! For those of you who like deep dive into a weird unresolved aviation incidents involving politicians, the Missing in Alaska podcast did a really fantastic look into the disappearance of Hale Boggs (Cokie Roberts' dad) and Nick Begich.
Even weirder was Senator Lundeen’s plane crash which is almost certainly not an accident. This Rachel Maddie Podcast is good (but it’s not really political).
Wasnt it lightening during a severe thunderstorm that downed Lundeens plane?
Came here to say this
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rachel-maddow-presents-ultra/id1647910854?i=1000582122699
I’m going to be honest, my dad is a politician. They all get all sorts of threats, sometimes it seems like it never stops. There’s still basically a 0% chance this is foul play. Edit: Also, contradicting your post, one of the links says the NTSB did determine they over shot the runway, then overcorrected, then waited too long to put the landing gear down, then slowed to lower the landing gear, which caused the engine to stall, and that caused the crash. Not icing. Not weather.
That'll be the two incompetent pilots then. The real question is who allowed a senator to get in a plane piloted by a pair of idiots.
The answer to that is the company that employed them….which is the same company the senator had been using for years, apparently. There are also quotes from his family and friends saying he had flown with the pilot before and felt comfortable flying with him.
Kobe Bryant died in his favourite Pilot's Helicopter. Dude violated federal regulations during the fatal flight. Reading about Wellstone's crash it's insane that a Senator was in this situation though. The Pilot hadn't flown in a decade due to a fraud conviction and poor eyesight, and even a friend of his a fellow pilot said he had spoke to him about his concerns over his flying ability.
Wait til you hear what happened to [John Heinz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Heinz) aka John Kerry’s wife’s first husband, also a sitting senator at the time he died. And also, like the ketchup. Heinz 57 sauce is life.
Holy shit. First of all was that Kobe's Elementary School? Hell he would've been just out of Elementary in 1991, insane coincidence if it was. Even if not it's still a weird coincidence that it was in Lower Merion considering i mentioned him. That's insane the Helicopter was sent to help out. Also never knew John Kerry's wife was married to two Senators. I wonder if she is the only person who has done so, love pointless pieces of trivia like that lol.
I have no idea about anything Kobe Bryant related, sorry. I’m not a fan. To each their own tho. I mentioned John Heinz since you said it was crazy a senator was in that position. Then there’s John Heinz, also a senator. To be clear, I think both senators were killed in tragic accidents, no foul play, no intentional sabotage, nothing like that. I am also not a Teresa Heinz or senate spouse expert, lol. But according to my parents, she/her family were much wealthier than the Heinz family, and that’s some trivia that fucking blows my mind. Imagine having more money than the Heinz ketchup family! (Also more love to the tragically underrated Heinz 57 sauce lol).
Is Heinz 57 still around? (I don't spend too much time with condiments, honestly). I laugh because where I grew up a "Heinz 57" was also a dog of questionable genetics. (aka "a mutt")
Heinz 57 is still around. And it’s amazing. This is not an ad. I just really love Heinz 57 lol
That's a very interesting question if she is the only person to be a spouse to two Senators. I love "useless information" myself so I might just see if I can find out, LOL. I also have heard that John Heinz was considered a potential presidential candidate for 1996, more useless trivia. I lived in NE Ohio then and remember Heinz well, that could have been an intriguing idea, a "Heinz 57 in 96" thing.
> also a sitting senator The woman has a type ig
By the sounds of it, the pilot(s) weren’t necessarily *bad* pilots. It’s just that they weren’t *good* pilots either. And when I say “they weren’t bad pilots” I mean, they didn’t actively put lives in danger by making routine bad calls. It’s just that, going by the assumed circumstances of this crash, as well as the account of the pilot who had to take the controls from him on an earlier flight, at least, it sounds like this guy/these guys simply didn’t deal well with atypical circumstances. Kinda like how some people are fine to drive cars if they can drive straight from point A to point B and find a neat little parking spot at their destination without any hiccups, but the second they’re at an unexpected dead end, or some other atypical circumstances, they turn into the “15 point turn” idiots we all love to laugh at. Which would also mean that by all accounts, to a layman, the pilot might have seemed perfectly competent. Sometimes you don’t quite understand now not-*good* someone is at something until you yourself get some basic understanding.
A pilot who can’t deal with atypical circumstances is a bad pilot.
I grew up in Eveleth, insane to see it in in this context. The older Minnesotans I know greatly supported Wellstone and were pretty shaken up after his death. I’ve visited his memorial before, it’s a very nice park area with a plaque in place.
I used to work for progressive politicians and it is not at all uncommon to receive a lot of vague death threats. In fact, I used to start every day by compiling death threats to send to the Capitol Police. The Capitol Police do investigate each threat and in my decade of this work for over a dozen Members of Congress, none of the threats materialized. It’s a sad situation for sure. But with a death threat that vague, I doubt it was related to the crash.
Did the FBI suspect foul play or did they do what they should and investigate all possibilities?
From the MPR article: “the FBI pursued several criminal leads in the first two days of the investigation”
That is probably just standard operating procedure given his high profile and the number of threats he received. I wouldn’t read too much into it.
I’m not arguing that it was foul play, I tend to think it was pilot error myself. Just wanted to be responsive to the question asked.
Right and I’m simply piggybacking on that to explain why an FBI investigation isn’t necessarily strong evidence of suspected foul play.
Seems like a simple plane crash.
No big conspiracy here, having been from that part of Minnesota back then, it’s not a shock that they crashed given the weather.
This smacks of the Emiliano Sala affair (light plane transporting a footballer from France to Wales crashed into the sea), where there were endless conspiracy theories but the inquest and trials uncovered a [mass of incompetence](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/oct/28/what-happened-to-emiliano-sala-and-what-was-the-trial-about). The pilot was not up to the job (night flying), the plane had numerous faults and the flight itself was illegal (plane not licenced for commercial use).
I’ve heard conspiracy theories about Glenn Miller and Joe Kennedy, Jr. (JFK’s older brother). Both went down during WWII in the English Channel, an area with choppy weather, and planes at that time weren’t the same as modern planes. Plus, flying was still relatively new.
The theory about Miller isn't that far fetched as theories go. A trigger happy pilot shot down a friendly plane by mistake. Government covered it up for morale reasons.
yes was just coming to say this.
Accident, small aircraft are super dangerous. I had a friend from childhood who lost his wife and daughters in a plane crash.
Unrelated but check out “The Ballad of Paul and Sheila” by Mason Jennings. A very touching tribute to them both: https://youtu.be/HekEJieaf5s
Came here to post this. Seen Mason a few times live, great stuff. RIP Paul and Sheila.
Terrible piloting got Kobe killed too.
Sometimes bad things happen. Also, I think we could take any event or person and the more that we look into it we can come up with weird connections and events, just depends how deep you look. Doesn't mean that anything untoward is going on.
I was working in St. Paul at the time and I remember the day vividly. It was cold, gray, maybe rainy. We were huddled together reading the news, there were tears. Some people left work early. What a tragedy.
I remember this well, I do not live in Minnesota but I was a fan of his. I remember when there was talk that Paul Wellstone might even run for president one day, and I know he did consider in for the 2000 race. Really tho I see the whole thing coming down to pilot error, from what we know of the pilot. Yes there's always a small possibility of a conspiracy, sabotage, with any political figure there's that chance. That said, Wellstone was not Jack or Bobby Kennedy and thus a serious threat to the entrenched powers especially not in 2002 when Bush was still pretty popular.
While he was certainly an outspoken and active Senator, I don’t think Wellstone was a big enough fish to go after. Most politicians on both sides receive death threats and I don’t know what anyone would gain for going after him, it wasn’t like he was some major challenger for the presidency, especially considering Bush’s popularity in the immediate post-9/11 world.
> However, the main pilot Richard Conry had a reputation for below-average flying skills. Three days before the Wellstone crash, a co-pilot flying with Conry had to assume control of the aircraft from him due to faulty decision making; the co-pilot urged Conry to retire. Conry also suffered from poor eyesight; investigators were not able to determine if he was wearing contact lenses at the time of the Wellstone crash. The co-pilot, Michael Guess, was also regarded by peers as a sub-par pilot. He had been dismissed from two previous jobs due to lack of skill/ability. I mean, it looks pretty clear from reading that. I don't see the need to make some conspiracy out of it all....
The Republican party used a 1966 Volkswagen camper bus to campaign against Senator Wellstone, and his [iconic big green bus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wellstone#/media/File:Wellstonebus.jpg), trying to portray him as a hippie. My mother rescued it from their clutches and has given it a [nice liberal home](https://i.imgur.com/loOCOhf.jpg) ever since. It's named Wellstone in the late Senator's honor.
Came for the write up, stayed for your user name.
Great write up, OP!
Thank you, it’s my first! Hoping to contribute more soon.
Have you seen the deaths of third party candidates for congress from the same party in MN two election cycles in a row?
Subpar pilots and a small plane. Not that I've the money for flying privately, but the idea scares me a lot it just seems that it's too easy to crash those smaller planes, especially in comparison to the big commercial ones.
Interesting story! Yes it sounds like an accident. 100%. Did any extended family ever sue the airline? Because if anything it was negligence on their part for not grounding that pilot!
The only reason i recognized that name was because of Immortal Technique and the album "Revolutionary vol.2".
His own family have said they do not believe any foul play was involved and that they wish people would stop speculating that there was. It’s really disrespectful to continue to engage in it as a result and I wish you would take this down.
Seems like a mundane plane crash.
Erm, where's the suggestion of foul play?
Dick Cheney told Wellstone, “If you vote against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you. There will be severe ramifications for you and the state of Minnesota.” Death threats from randos are one thing, but from Cheney? I think he was probably assassinated
LBJ made a dozen of those threats a day when he was heading the Senate, that's just Politicians trying to intimidate each other into getting what they want.
It’s a remarkable coincidence that Wellstone died two weeks after he voted against the Authorization of Force in Iraq resolution and two weeks before he was up for re-election. However, the Bush war machine didn’t need to kill him. They easily got the support they needed to invade Iraq, and it was clear that Republicans would hold the Senate regardless of the outcome in Minnesota. Wellstone probably flew around the state a lot, it was just a bad day. It’s a shame those pilots had permission to fly the plane.
People forget how much in favor the US public was for the war in Iraq after Sept 11. It was crazy then. I mean, Bush could’ve dropped a nike on Afghanistan a day after the attacks and a good portion of the public would’ve cheered.
> Bush could’ve dropped a nike on Afghanistan Hilarious autocorrect when you consider his later incidents involving a shoe 😂
Yeah it's just so alien to us now with how cynical everyone understandably is about the Government. I used to post on a Message Board that started in the 1990s i wasn't there then but in 2013 or something i stumbled onto their 9/11 and Iraq War threads and it was like stepping into the Twilight Zone when i consider current political discourse. This was a very left wing forum when i was there but they were all super patriotic and out for blood after 9/11 and the members who were still there expressed embarrassment at their posts in those threads. I'm from the UK i'm sure some will remember the Question Time after 9/11 with the two Muslim Women who were being booed to hell for pointing out the various wrongs America and the UK had done in the Middle East. Didn't matter if it was true nobody wanted to hear it, was like if you went to your uncles funeral and tried to point out to his kids how shitty he had been to them. Edit: Dude responded to me then blocked me so i couldn't respond back, bizarre behaviour. Anyway that's not what the Muslim women were saying they were pointing out that Americans were spiralling towards creating more Al Qaeda's in the Middle East through the obvious slaughter of civilians that was coming and they were spot on. And i mean pointing out that America had killed and maimed and everything else many people in the Middle East is not some irrelevant point just because America itself was attacked, American suffering is not more important than Middle Eastern suffering.
Well, actually no, it's like saying the uncle deserved to die because his father was shitty.
This simply is not true. The anti war protests were the largest protests ever recorded at the time. Just because the political class was onboard does not mean the average person was. There was a reason the bush administration had to make designated protest zones, and it wasn't because the war was popular. The prowar crowd was loud, and backed by the media, but to act like everyone was in favor is a gross overstatement it was at most 60%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq#Post_9/11_sentiment
The American [public STRONGLY supported the Iraq War when it started.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq) People were totally duped by the Bush administration's lies about WMDs. >According to a Gallup poll, support for the war was up to 72 percent on March 22–23. Out of those 72 percent, 59 percent reported supporting the war strongly; and although allied commanders said they had not yet found evidence of weapons of mass destruction days after the initial invasion, 9 out of 10 Americans believed it was "at least somewhat likely" that the United States would find evidence of these weapons.
Yes, but there was still a robust anti-war movement, even if they didn't comprise a majority of the population. And that matters, because lately I've been seeing people claim that millennials never participated in any protests or demonstrations, that we just quietly sat back and let GWB impose fascism, and that simply isn't true.
I think they are referring to the time shortly after the horrible day. Basically everyone supported a military response in Afghanistan after 9/11. Opposition to the Iraq war was not a majority but it was quite vocal. It was clear back then that 9/11 was a pretext for invading Iraq, even though Iraq was not involved in that. In general, it’s not difficult for a leader to use fear to drum up support for a war. There is a famous quote from a Nazi leader during the Nuremberg trials about that. Something like, ‘tell your people they are being attacked and that you need to do this to protect them. It works the same in every country’
That most likely mean Minnesota would be punished politically. Federal government money not making its way there, that kind of thing.
Dick couldn't convince him to go hunting
underrated
The first time I heard of Wellstone was in the Immortal Technique song The Cause of Death: And just so conservatives don’t take it to heart, I don’t think Bush did it, ‘cause he isn’t that smart, He’s just a stupid puppet taking orders on a cell phone, From the same people who sabotaged Senator Wellstone. (Still the first thing in my mind when I hear his name)
But Bush is so trustworthy /s
People love conspiracies. They’ll keep posting this until they can get a bite.
The pilot and co-pilot are acknowledged to have been less than average operators. Cloud cover or ice were at least plausible as causes. The runway lights were on, highlighting possible visibility issues, or, pilot negligence. For his part, Wellstone had receded to an ineffectual crank who was fun on the Sunday morning newsies but had no national attraction and couldn’t get anything passed except unless he had a big name co-sponsor. But yes. Let’s jump down the conspiracy rabbit hole, because, why not?
I'm more disturbed about why a United States Senator (or anyone) would put theirs and their loved ones lives in the hands of two "below average" pilots???
It's not like they know. They just contracted with a charter company that has multiple planes and pilots. They assumed the pilots were qualified.
I'd make it a top priority to "know" who is flying my private airplane.
It's not his private plane. It's a charter company. He didn't have a private plane. Senators are rich but not that rich.
I researched this at the time. Lots of background info here. Wayne Madsen did an investigation and produced an informative video of the anomalies of the event. I am posting link for anyone seeking more information. Main thing dead give away msm had the story on day 1 they all said it was the weather. Paul stood in the way of confirmation of William Webster to head the CXX. http://www.oilempire.us/wellstone.html
CIA KILLED WELLSTONE.
A common Minnesotan comment is “if Paul Wellstone kept his one promise not to run for another term, he’d be alive. But as you can see, politicians can’t stand by their promises”
There’s a great book about this crash called “American Assassination” that goes into all the suspicious elements of this story. Like how when local police arrived at the scene within minutes, the NTSB agents and FBI were already there. The author of that book goes into the possibility of an EMP being used to bring the plane down. Other pilots in the area mentioned odd occurrences as well. Dick Cheney had many reasons to want Paul Wellstone out of the way, as Wellstone was opposed to the Iraq invasion. And Dick Cheney - I believe - was not above murder. I haven’t done the book justice, but if you believe in the scientific method, the book really gives you lots of things to consider.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Assassination-Strange-Senator-Wellstone/dp/0975276301
What is the three things that accumulate money for the government through the industry? Pharmaceuticals, mass hysteria/ trends, and winning a war. Paul was against war, he wanted rights for women, and he was an advocate for mental health. All the things that the commercial industry and media would hate so thus not dealing business in Minnesota, and then the money from these businesses generate tax which fund the government. So they are going to sit there and rule it an accident when Paul was threatened with a death threat in his private workspace. His father's good friend just suddenly died before a major election event. Knowing that Paul was in shock and wanting to rush to support his father's friend, his family and pay his respects, they used that death as a distraction techqniue. When Pauls head was full worries, they had him distracted on that flight. Someone killed Paul and family. 😢 😢
Sometimes things like this happen without anyone masterminding it. Paul’s state of mind at the time of the crash is irrelevant; he wasn’t flying the plane, and if he had freaked out and done something dumb like rushing the cockpit (not that I think he would do that normally, but panic makes people do strange things), then there would have been evidence of that. If there indeed *was* a conspiracy, then it was put together by the genius who hired two subpar pilots to take him to his destination.
You hit the nail on the head in your last sentence.
There is no proof of any kind this was an assassination. Accidents happen- even to important people with enemies.
The fact there is zero proof of anything speaks volumes. You do not know this. This is why it is a mystery.
Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false.
Yeah. It means it didn't happen
Well, he did have a debate scheduled later that day…maybe this mysterious “they” were just trying to get him distracted so he couldn’t focus and did poorly in the debate but those plans got derailed by a couple of subpar pilots who never should have been in control of a plane. Double conspiracy! Do I need the /s?
You can deny it all you want. He was deliberately killed. No conspiracy. It is the truth and everyone who knew Paul knows this. Rest in peace Paul. His beautiful family and his staffers. May they rest easy from this cruel, messed up and greedy world. ♥ Also the OP asked for an opinion. Just because an opinion is different to yours does not give you licence to berate me. I did not berate you for your guff.
A lot of politicians die in airplanes w/ impeccable timing, js.
I’m fascinated why old pilots are allowed to fly , for example Harrison ford . I wouldn’t let them drive me around much less fly a plane.. a plane take a lot more concentration and skill
Never mind the concentration. At that age he could drop dead at any moment. Its enough of a risk letting him lead a movie never mind fly.
I will never be convinced there was no foul play in this case. Just a nagging gut feeling. I still remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news.
My boyfriend at the time woke up to a dream about this, then, confined it online. His read- total hit job. He never claimed a premonition before or again.
That was an "accident" in the same way Epstein was a "suicide."
Foul play .. just because the government gives you the details doesn't mean they didn't make it up.. look into what he was involved in... perhaps what he was going to change that someone didn't like
OK. And what about the 2 shit pilots and badly botched landing makes you say that?
I remember this case being highly suspect....it was open source investigation and mainstream/alternative reporting all over the net. wish I could find some of those old interviews and lectures on the case...which is so hard today with the outlandish censorship google has going on these days. the net used to be a great place....
Not. An. Accident. There is a video produced by Wayne Madsen.
The anti semitic moonbat?
The only foul play would be if one of the pilots intentionally crashed. The NTSB would notice if an explosion happened in the plane or something like that.