transpired. reporter: well, people know alaska is big, but it is also sparsely populated. dillingham is an important fishing community, but the number of people there would be in the low thousands if that, and there is probably no road that can be followed, so if the aviation conditions were poor for helicopters and fixed winged aircraft to fly by and drop somebody, it would be hard to get there. although we did have an earlier report that some so-called samaritans had showed up. we have a report about sean o keefe being on the flight, but what s your understanding as to the information chain here that suggests that the former senator ted stevens might be on this flight? can you help us with that? reporter: well, the best i can do is there have been attempts to contact his family after there were stories/rumors, or facts that he was on that