Maybe everyone knows this, but I just learned that Senator-elect Mark Begich's father was Nick Begich, the Alaskan Congressman whose airplane disappeared over the Gulf of Alaska on October 16, 1972.
Louisiana pol Hale Boggs was also on the plane. No remains were ever found and eventually all the passengers were declared dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Nick won his seat against Frank Murkoski, later Senator from and Governor of Alaska. Nick was running for re-election against Don Young and won posthumously (although he had been missing for several weeks on election day, he had not been declared dead yet). Don Young won the subsequent special election.
A sad and ironic sidenote is that Nick Begich was born and raised in Eveleth, Minnesota, which is where Paul Wellstone was flying to when his plane crashed on October 25, 2002 while he was running for re-election to the U.S. Senate. As we know, Wellstone was replaced on the ballot after Wellstone's death and Norm Coleman won that seat.