States News Service, August 7, 1992
Copyright 1992 States News Service
States News Service
August 7, 1992, Friday
LENGTH: 489 words
HEADLINE: Fresh Controversy Surrounds Boggs' Plane Crash
BYLINE: By Brian Baron, States News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:

Fresh controversy surrounds a mysterious 20-year-old plane crash that killed former Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs.

New information obtained through an FBI report this week revealed that a tip concerning the location of the downed plane may never have been pursued. The plane disappeared on Oct. 16, 1972, near the Malaspina Glacier.

Despite the new development, however, Alaska State Troopers Friday said they will not mount a renewed effort to find the wreckage of the Cessna-310 that carried Boggs, the former House Majority Leader, and an Alaska congressman, Nick Begich.

Col. John Murphy, director of the troopers, said it would be nearly impossible to find the plane.

"We have taken the time necessary to research the new information received and to review old files, but have determined that to search the coordinate indicated from the radio tracking almost 20 years prior would have negligible results," Murphy said in a statement.

Begich, Boggs, and two others were flying from Anchorage to Juneau when their plane disappeared in a storm near the Malaspina Glacier. The plane was never found despite an intensive search.
A Washington, D.C. newspaper, Roll Call, through a Freedom Of Information Act request, found the existence of the FBI report and questioned whether anyone followed up on the lead immediately following the plane's disappearance.

"The FBI documents on the report leave unresolved the question of whether (the tip) was followed up in the days after the crash, and those most familiar with the massive search have no recollection of hearing about it," the newspaper reported Thursday.

The Coast Guard reviewed its records of the original search after the newspaper report and found no evidence of the tip, a spokesman said Friday. The agency decided earlier this week not to look for the plane again, although pilots that fly near the area on other missions have been instructed to look for the wreckage.

Mark Begich, the late congressman's son and an Anchorage city councilman, said he would like the questions surrounding his father's disappearance to be answered.
"We just want to know if they followed this up at the time," Begich said. "If not, why not? If so, what did they find?"

Mark Begich also praised the troopers for reviewing the case.

"For the troopers to take a look into it was worthy, whereas the Coast Guard said 'We're not interested,'" he said.

Mark Begich said his brother has written a letter to Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens asking him to push authorities for more information on the tip. The source of the lead was blacked out on the FBI documents Roll Call obtained, according to the newspaper.

Begich said the tip came from someone in Long Beach, Calif., an area where a lot of military equipment was tested, including heat-detection devices that could have generated the lead that Roll Call unearthed.

Boggs served 27 years as a Louisiana representative.