John McCain, Senator And Former Presidential Candidate, Dies At 81.

US senator John McCain, the maverick Republican who survived a Vietnam War prison camp and ran unsuccessfully for president, has died at the age of 81 after struggling with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

The six-term Republican senator had been suffering from a number of health problems in recent years.

He had also been undergoing treatment for glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, since December 2017. He had previously survived the removal of non-invasive melanomas at least three times.

A statement from Senator McCain's office said his wife Cindy and other family members were with him when he died.

"At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 60 years," the statement read.

US President Donald Trump, who carried out a bitter public feud with Senator McCain during his illness, expressed his sympathy in a tweet following the news of his death.

John McCain was born at the Coco Solo Naval Station in Panama on August 29, 1936.

His father and paternal grandfather were both admirals in the US Navy.

He followed in their footsteps, graduating from the United States Naval Academy in Maryland in 1958.

Serving as a Navy pilot, Senator McCain was almost killed in a fire on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal during the Vietnam War.

Senator John McCain (bottom right) poses with his US Navy Squadron in 1965

On his 23rd combat mission over Vietnam in 1967, his plane was shot down.


He spent five-and-half years in captivity, including two in solitary confinement, and was subjected to frequent beatings and torture.

In the Senate, he was a critic of harsh interrogation techniques such as "waterboarding" or simulated drowning.

First elected to the US House of Representatives in 1982, Senator McCain won his first term in the Senate in 1986.

Seen as a maverick in his campaign for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, Senator McCain gave then-Texas governor George W Bush a scare by winning the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire by 18 percentage points.

But he lost to Mr Bush in South Carolina after bitter state primary campaigns.

Eight years later, he fought back from the brink of defeat to win the Republican nomination, with Sarah Palin as his running mate, but lost to Mr Obama.