EADS exec making steady health recovery from crash

WASHINGTON Aug 20 (Reuters) - Sean O'Keefe, who heads the U.S. unit of Europe's EADS (EAD.PA), is recovering steadily after being one of four people to survive a small plane crash in Alaska last week, a family spokesman said.

O'Keefe's son, Kevin, 19, was released from Providence Alaska Medical Center on Tuesday, and attended the funeral on Wednesday of former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, who was killed in the crash along with four other people.

The elder O'Keefe, 54, remains at the hospital, but "is making steady progress toward recovery," family spokesman Paul Pastorek said this week.

A hospital spokeswoman told Reuters on Friday that the condition of another survivor, Jim Morhard, had been upgraded to good from fair.

The spokeswoman said O'Keefe's family had asked that O'Keefe's condition not be released.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is continuing to investigate the crash, which occurred near Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska on Aug. 16.

Investigators have now moved the wreckage of the single-engine plane, a red DeHavilland DHC-3T, to Dillingham, Alaska, and will closely examine the engine, a spokesman for the safety board said on Friday.

Investigators have interviewed two of the four survivors, he said, but did not identify them.

Stevens and O'Keefe, who once worked for the senator on the appropriations committee, were on a fishing trip in a remote part of Alaska with other former Senate staff members and their children.

The others killed in the crash were the pilot, Theron Smith; Washington lobbyist William Phillips Sr; Dana Tindall, a senior vice president with GCI International, which owned the plane involved in the crash; and her daughter, Corey.

O'Keefe, a former NASA administrator and U.S. Navy Secretary, has been overseeing his company's battle to win a contract for new Air Force refueling planes valued at up to $50 billion.

"We're looking forward to his speedy return and remain focused on the tanker competition and executing our other business," said Guy Hicks, spokesman for EADS North America. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa and John Crawley; Editing by Gary Hill)