Posted on 10/30/2002 10:50:03 AM PST by ravingnutter
Edited on 04/13/2004 3:37:49 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The co-pilot who died in Friday's plane crash with Sen. Paul Wellstone played a minor role in the story involving Zacarias Moussaoui, the accused Sept. 11 conspirator who briefly attended an Eagan flight school.
Co-pilot Michael Guess, 30, had performed administrative work at the Pan Am International Flight Academy last year as he continued accumulating flying hours. There he met Moussaoui, the school's most infamous student.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
And another related story:
Wellstone's co-pilot has family in area
BY CAROL KNAPP Tribune Correspondent
A co-pilot of the plane that crashed, who died along with U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone on Friday, had ties to southwest Michigan.
Michael Jenkins Guess, 30, the son of Dufferian Jenkins Contreras, of St. Joseph, was among eight people on board the twin-engine plane that went down in a swampy forest about 135 miles north of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Wellstone's wife and daughter, three staff members and another pilot also died.
The plane, a Beechcraft King Air A 100, was licensed to Executive Aviation, of Eden Prairie, Minn., where Guess had been employed as a pilot since June 2001.
The accident that took Guess's life marked his second involvement in a major news story.
Colleagues recalled him saying that he was "at least a role player" in the detection of Zacarias Moussaoui, accused of aiding in the Sept. 11 terrorist plot. Executive Aviation spokesman Dave Mona said Guess told co-workers he became suspicious of Moussaoui when the two came in contact at the Pan Am International Flight Academy near Minneapolis in August 2001, and he raised the issue with others.
Guess was performing administrative work at the academy while accumulating additional flying hours.
It's unknown if Guess or senior pilot Richard Conry had misgivings about Friday's flight. There was no cockpit voice recorder on the plane, which sources say was engulfed in poor weather throughout the trip from Minneapolis-St. Paul. Authorities close to the crash investigation said the two pilots were advised several times during the flight of "adverse icing conditions."
A statement released by Executive Aviation Friday afternoon said "our family is deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic loss of two of our pilots, Captain Richard Conry and Co-pilot Michael Guess. Both were very dear to us and will be greatly missed. Our hearts and prayers go out to their families and friends."
The statement went on to say that Wellstone, a prominent liberal Democrat seeking re-election in November, had flown in the same aircraft with the same pilots a number of times and that both pilots had extensive service in all weather conditions.
Guess's mother, who talked to him a day or two before the accident, was still reeling from news of the tragedy Monday morning.
"The only thing I want to say is, he called me and told me, 'I love you, Mom. No matter what.' Those were the last words he ever spoke to me," his mother said.
Guess graduated from Cretin-Derham Hall High School, a private Catholic school, in St. Paul, in 1991. A classmate, Israel Moses, remembered him as smart and outgoing, although somewhat reserved among strangers.
"Mike was the type of person who was always ready to lend a hand, whether you needed a ride to school or help with your homework," Moses said. "He always wanted to be a pilot, and he was so excited about being accepted into flight school (at the University of North Dakota). I went to a rival school, North Dakota State, about 45 miles down the road, and we'd tease each other about that. He would come up to watch me play football, though. He was real supportive, a great friend."
Guess, who had logged 650 hours as a certified commercial pilot, was a graduate of the University of North Dakota aeronautics program. He lived in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and was about to be married.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators said they had few hard clues about the cause of the crash.
BUMP!
Yes, the goodbye message was strange...someone speculated a couple of days ago about another plane incident, involving 2 other Senators that were going to MO to campaign for Talent, where their landing gear would not come down. That is why I thought this was so interesting.
I don't know...I never got that far...I kept getting the "This page cannot be displayed" error from my ISP. Had to hit the back button real quick so I would not lose what I posted. Very frustrating! Seems to be working a little better now.
Here's my point. Just finish the sentence of Guess: I love you mom, no matter what "happens". I think Guess was being blackmailed and the only way out was to sabotage the plane because they were going to kill his family and for sure him.
The only other alternative if we go conspiratorial would be a ground to air missile actually shot the plane down.
What I don't understand is why they were so freaking happy last night at the memorial service. They are all sociopaths or psychopaths for their lack of normal human grief responses.
Hmmm, kind of a convienient "inadvertent" move. And Moussaoui just happend to have a CD-R or -RW to burn the program onto? And the work station just happend to have a CD burner? I guess the thing might have fit onto a floppy, but I doubt it very much.
If it wasn't just an accident, maybe Wellstone wasn't the target?
Oh I wouldn't say the only one. Those general aviation birds don't get the security screening the scheduled airlines do. Someone else could have sabotaged the plane in any number of ways, some of them difficult to detect. (For example they don't know if the deicer was working because of fire damage to the aircraft). Someone could have placed a bomb on the aircraft, lots of possibilities, although sabotogue would be the easiest to conceal. Of course if Guess himself caused the plane to crash, as you speculae, then there would be no physical evidence at all, and their is no cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder required to be on those little birds.
You left out a third possibility: The "No matter what" possibility, which could mean suicide or murder/suicide.
One of those things that makes you go hmmmmm.
well the plane WAS seen by witness flying at a right angle (South) away from airport, and marks on trees made by wings, and propellers say the planes, engines were working just fine, and at full throttle. Sounds like it could have been murder, or murder/suicide! But we will never know.
The true tragedy in this whole picture, the loss of a fine aircraft.
Oh dear, as much as I hate to say this, so do I!
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