Former senator Ted Stevens, the longest-ever serving Republican in the upper chamber, was confirmed dead in a plane crash in Alaska, US media reported Tuesday.
At least five people were killed when the plane was downed late Monday night in a secluded south-western part of the state. Four others may have survived the crash and were being attended to by rescue workers on scene, dpa reported.
US broadcaster CNN reported that Stevens was not among the survivors. Sean O'Keefe, the chief executive of aerospace giant EADS and former head of NASA, was also on board, but his condition remains unknown.
Stevens had been out of Congress since he lost a 2008 re-election bid in the wake of a damaging corruption scandal. He had survived another plane crash in 1978 in Anchorage, Alaska, in which his first wife was killed.