Beacon Failure Slowed Ted Stevens Discovery by Hours, NTSB Says

Rescuers could have reached the site of an Alaska plane crash last year that killed former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens hours sooner if a mechanism designed to alert them had worked properly, U.S. investigators said.

The crash into a mountainside 10 miles northeast of Aleknagik, Alaska, killed five of nine people bound for a remote fishing camp aboard a DeHavilland DHC-3T, built in 1957 and equipped with floats, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.