John F. Kerry's choice this week of John Edwards as his vice presidential candidate may have been a mystery to the national media and political pundits, but the secret could not be kept from Bryan Smith, a 39-year-old US Airways mechanic, who was the first to tell the world of Kerry's choice.

Gene J. Puskar, Associated Press

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry boards his newly painted campaign plane at Pittsburgh International Airport Tuesday after announcing that Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina would be his vice presidential running mate at a morning rally in Market Square. Monday night, the freshly applied "Kerry Edwards" logo on the craft was glimpsed by airport worker Bryan Smith, who posted the info online, securing what has become acknowledged as the "scoop" on Edwards' closely-held selection.

Smith, at work Monday evening near Pittsburgh International Airport, spotted the Kerry campaign plane being affixed with the John Edwards decals. After leaving work, he posted the news at 11:45 p.m. on an obscure Web site known as usaviation.com.

In doing so, Smith became the first person to tell the world of Kerry's choice, beating Kerry's announcement in Downtown Pittsburgh by a full nine hours and scooping the nation's largest newspaper and television networks -- all of which were furiously working to break the story first.

How did he do it? Like any good reporter, he got curious and lucky.

Around 3:30 p.m. Monday, on his way into work, Smith tried to pass through the airport's hangar 4 to hangar 3, where he works. He was told by Kerry campaign workers that he could not enter hangar 4, where Kerry's campaign plane was parked.

Being curious, though, Smith "peeked in" between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. and "saw them putting the [Edwards] logos on the plane." The name was quickly concealed with paper, so Smith "just happened to peek in at the right time," he revealed yesterday in a National Public Radio interview.

Smith left work at 11:15 p.m. Monday, drove home to Moon and posted the news at 11:45 p.m., on a site known mainly for news about the airline industry. He posted it in a chat room not under his own name, but under a screen name: Aerosmith.

Yesterday, national news outlets began crediting him with getting it first. MSNBC host Keith Olbermann yesterday said the national media "was scooped on this early leader for political story of the summer" by "Aerosmith."

"The scoop award, thus, to you, Aerosmith."

Smith's work also landed him the NPR interview, on which he described himself as a registered Democrat who planned to vote for Kerry and Edwards in November. "I think that is what the country needs," he said.