US Representatives Missing in Alaska for Over 50 Years

The disappearance of Thomas Hale Boggs, a prominent political figure and House Majority Leader, remains one of the most mysterious events in American history. On Oct. 16, 1972, Boggs, D-La., was in Anchorage, Alaska to campaign for the re-election of fellow U.S. Rep. Nick Begich. The two men boarded a twin-engine Cessna 310 plane alongside Begich’s aide, Russell Brown, and pilot, Don Jonz. It was a standard 550-mile journey from Anchorage to Juneau. Low visibility air plagued the route, yet the plane took off as scheduled. Twelve minutes later, the plane and its passengers lost contact, never to be heard from again.

Massive Search Effort

The disappearance of the plane sparked the largest search and rescue operation in Alaska at the time. The U.S. government deployed over 40 military aircraft and 50 civilian planes over a search grid spanning 325,000 square miles in an attempt to locate the men. Despite these exhaustive efforts, which included over 3,600 hours of search time, no trace of the plane or its occupants was ever found. Authorities called off the search after 39 days, and the plane is still missing to this day.

Conspiracies Abound

The incident had immediate repercussions, leading to the passage of a law mandating the installation of emergency locator transmitters in all U.S. civil aircraft. But it also gave rise to several conspiracy theories, many of which centered on Boggs’ role in the Warren Commission, the group tasked with investigating the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Boggs expressed doubts about the single bullet - the leading explanation for the assassination. Conspiracy theorists believe the government silenced him because of these dissenting views.

Other theories pointed to international political assassins. Begich, who was of Croatian descent, had supported Croatian nationalism, which some speculated might have made him a target for Serbian nationalists. Despite these theories, no concrete evidence ever emerged to support them.

In Memoriam

In the wake of the tragedy, constituents posthumously reelected both Boggs and Begich in November 1972. On Jan. 3, 1973, the House of Representatives officially recognized their deaths. Lindy Boggs, Hale Boggs’ widow, went on to win a special election to fill his seat and served in Congress until 1991. She was later appointed as the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican by President Bill Clinton.

To honor the missing congressmen, the U.S. erected a cenotaph - a monument to someone buried elsewhere – for the men at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Cokie Roberts, Boggs’ daughter, reflected in a 1977 interview with The Washington Post that her mother “thought that would be a good idea for Daddy and Nick Begich because they were never found and couldn’t be buried. Daddy’s plaque is on one side of it, and Nick Begich’s is on the other side. So it’s like they are together for eternity,” as reported by the Anchorage Daily News.

The missing plane and its passengers continue to draw interest from those still curious about what exactly happened to them, a mystery that keeps memories of the four men alive.

References: Hale Boggs’ plane vanishes in Alaska: Oct. 16, 1972 | Plane carrying Cokie Roberts’ father disappeared in Alaska in 1972. It was never found.