Former LSU Chancellor and NASA chief Sean O’Keefe has been moved from an Alaska hospital to a hospital in Washington, D.C., according to media reports Thursday. O’Keefe has been hospitalized since he was on a plane that crashed Aug. 9 near Dillingham, Alaska. The crash killed five people — including former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens — while four people survived. A family spokesman told WAFB that O’Keefe wasn’t moved for any “particular danger” and that he has made progress. The name of O’Keefe’s new hospital location was not given. LSU System spokesman Charles Zewe could not confirm the report to The Daily Reveille on Thursday. O’Keefe’s son, Kevin, has already been released from the hospital. Sean O’Keefe was Chancellor at the University from 2005 to 2008. He resigned Jan. 16, 2008. The preliminary report released Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board about the crash said the plane left a corporate-owned lodge around 2:30 p.m., and the wreckage was spotted on a remote southwest Alaska mountainside at about 8:05 p.m. It said the crash occurred around 2:45 p.m. Investigators had previously said they believed the plane left the lodge between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., and that it was found sometime between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., based on preliminary information they’d received. The report does not give a cause for the crash, and it sheds no new light on weather conditions encountered by the pilot, who didn’t file a flight plan and was relying on visual flight rules for what was supposed to have been a relatively short flight to a fishing camp. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. —- Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]
Former Chancellor Sean O’Keefe moved from Alaska to DC hospital
August 26, 2010