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[hifiguy]

16. Grab a beer, I have a story to tell.

As it so happens, a friend and former colleague of mine was in the area, in the air. I'd worked with her as a lawyer but she caught the flying bug and quickly got all the credentials she needed to be a commercial pilot. She was the co-pilot in the plane that was flying Norm Coleman to the same destination Wellstone was headed for at a debate.

At the time Wellstone's plane went down she was within 10 air miles of the plane. Acccording to her the weather was kind of drizzly and the clouds were low, but there was nothing unusual or abnormally hazardous about the weather. Her flight was completely uneventful.

After the crash she was pretty shaken. She told me there was no reason on earth for that plane to crash unless the pilot dove it in intentionally or as she said "it was swatted out of the sky by something." She tended to favor the latter explanation. BTW, she was not terribly political nor was she inclined to conspiracy theories.

That was one of the most sobering conversations I ever had in my life.