EVELETH, Minn. — A plane chartered by Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., crashed Friday and all eight aboard died, a Transportation Department official said.
On board were his wife, Shiela Ison, his daughter Marcia and campaign workers.
Sen. Wellstone was running for re-election in a race against former St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman. The race was watched across the nation as one of the contests that could determine the majority party in the Senate.
Wellstone, the most liberal senator in Congress, was headed to a regional airport northwest of Duluth in a twin engine King Air turbo-prop, said to be one of the safest planes in the air.
There had been concern that Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., was on the plane as well since he was campaigning for Wellstone, but it was confirmed that he was taking a different plane.
Wellstone announced recently that he had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but would not let it deter him. Before he acknowledged his disease publicly, denizens of Capitol Hill had noticed that he was walking with a limp. He chalked it up to long work days.
The old-school traditional Democrat had broken a term-limits promise to stop running for office after two terms, saying that Minnesota needed a voice of opposition to the Bush administration.
Minnesota's senior senator, was born to Russian immigrants Leon and Minnie Wellstone on July 21, 1944. In 1963, Wellstone married Sheila Ison. They have two surviving children, David and Mark and six grandchildren.
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