Draft:2002 Eveleth King Air A100 crash

On October 25, 2002, a Beechcraft King Air A100, owned and operated by Aviation Charter, Inc., crashed near Eveleth, Minnesota at 10:21a.m. local time, killing all six passengers and both pilots on board. The aircraft was transporting United States senator Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, daughter Marcia, and campaign aides Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy, and Will McLaughlin to Eveleth–Virginia Municipal Airport; they were scheduled to attend the funeral of Martin Rukavina, the father of Minnesota state representative Tom Rukavina. The accident threw a highly competitive U.S. Senate election, in which Wellstone was running for a third term in office, into chaos just 11 days before it was set to occur.

A National Transportation Safety Board investigation determined that the flight crew failed to maintain adequate airspeed while attempting to execute a VOR approach as they neared a runway, causing the plane to irrecoverably stall. On its descent, the craft splintered and its remnants subsequently caught on fire.

Pre-flight
The weather forecast in northeastern Minnesota on the morning of October 25, 2002, called for "light snow and mist, freezing temperatures and low ground visibility". After receiving the day's weather report at 7:15a.m. (CDT), pilot Richard Conry informed a Federal Aviation Administration (FFA) official that he was considering cancelling the flight scheduled to take U.S. senator Paul Wellstone and five others to attend the funeral of Martin Rukavina in Virginia, Minnesota. His primary concern was icing.

After communicating his hesitance with Wellstone's campaign scheduler, Conry called co-pilot Michael Guess at 8:10a.m. to tell him that he was calling off the flight. At 8:30a.m., he called Guess again to let him know that he had changed his mind. At 8:45a.m., Conry made one final phone call to another co-pilot, who did not answer because she was not home at the time. He arrived at the St. Paul Downtown Airport around 9:00a.m., and would go on to have several more discussions with officials regarding the conditions before ultimately deciding to go ahead with the trip once they had improved and reached what he considered to be "minimally acceptable levels for flying".

In an interview conducted after the crash by investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the co-pilot Conry had attempted to call before he arrived at the airport told them that the two were close, and that he would often consult with her whenever he had concerns about flying. In another interview, a controller described Conry's demeanor before takeoff as "stressed and apprehensive", and expressed that he was worried Conry was being pressured to fly. In contrast, another interviewee found him to be "surprisingly unconcerned", while also noting that Conry displayed a seeming lack of familiarity with the area he would be flying in when he asked what direction Eveleth was in, as well as what its destination code was.

Wellstone, who had flown with Conry at least 12 separate times before the crash, was known to have a "fear of flying;" however, he had grown fond of Conry and trusted his abilities as a pilot. That morning, Wellstone was anxious about taking the flight, so much so that he personally received an assessment on the weather conditions. Conry attempted to calm Wellstone's nerves by enlisting the help of fellow pilot Dexter A. Clarke to "reassure the senator that everything would be all right". Wellstone was ultimately convinced to make the trip by Conry's walkthrough of the King Air A100's deicing equipment, guarantee that he had contingency plans in place in the event of an emergency, and confirmation that the weather had improved and met his minimums.