
NTSB: Heavy plane, drag from antlers contributed to crash that killed ex-Rep Mary Peltola's husband
The National Transportation Safety Board, in its final report on the crash that killed Eugene Peltola Jr., who was the only person on board the aircraft, listed several factors among its probable cause findings. They included decisions by Peltola to fly the plane above its maximum takeoff weight and affix a set of moose antlers on the right wing strut that caused a drag, along with turbulent flight conditions in the area.
Downdrafts, 'along with the overweight airplane and the added drag and lateral weight imbalance caused by the antlers on the right wing, would likely have resulted in the airplane having insufficient power and/or control authority to maneuver above terrain,' the report states.
The Piper PA-18-150 Super Cub crashed Sept. 12, 2023, northeast of the small western Alaska community of St. Mary's. Peltola had days earlier taken five hunters, a guide and equipment from the community of Holy Cross to an airstrip at St. Mary's. The group set up camp next to the runway, which was near hilly terrain and about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northwest of Holy Cross, the agency said.
The day before the crash, the group got a moose and made plans with Peltola, via satellite messaging devices, for him to transport the meat, the NTSB said. On the day of the crash, Peltola had already picked up a load of meat and had returned for another. He did not use scales to weigh the cargo, the agency said.
Two hunters were at the site when the crash occurred and provided aid to Peltola, the agency previously reported. Peltola died of his injuries within about two hours, the agency said.
'Given the remote location of the accident site, which was about 400 miles from a hospital, and accessible only by air, providing the pilot with prompt medical treatment following the accident was not possible,' Tuesday's report states.
The agency said carrying antlers on the outside of a plane is a common practice in Alaska but requires formal approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, with a notation in the plane's logbooks. 'There was no evidence that such approval had been granted for the accident airplane,' the report states.
Peltola was a former Alaska regional director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and worked for decades for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He had received his commercial pilot's license in 2004, requiring him to use corrective lenses at all distances, according to an FAA database.
His death came almost exactly a year after Mary Peltola was sworn in as Alaska's lone U.S. House member, following a special election for the seat. Mary Peltola, who is Yup'ik, was the first Alaska Native in Congress.
She won a full, two-year term in November 2022 but lost her reelection bid last November. She has kept a relatively low public profile since then.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
PHOTO COLLECTION: AP Top Photos of the Day, Monday, July 28, 2025
News PHOTO COLLECTION: AP Top Photos of the Day, Monday, July 28, 2025 Show all 13


Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Dear Richard Madeley: My wife and I no longer seem to be able to sleep in the same room
Dear Richard, My wife and I are in our late 50s, and lately we've both started to sleep more lightly, as seems common at this stage of life. Sometimes she or, less commonly, I migrate to the spare room for some portion of the night, where we can read for a bit and hopefully drift off to sleep again. Usually I go to bed an hour or so after my wife, and she's already asleep when I get there. My problem is that I have started to feel really tense when I get into bed, which makes me more fidgety. This often wakes her up, which I feel bad about. I'm not worrying about work, as she says she often does in the night – just about waking her. I sleep more soundly when she's away, though I also miss her presence a great deal. And I've tried forsaking the late-night film and going to bed at the same time as her, but that doesn't seem to work. I told her that I was twitchy in the night because I was worried about waking her and she seemed to appreciate the kindness of the thought but then got quite defensive, as if I was accusing her of being oversensitive. I realise we're lucky to have a spare room – though our bedroom is my favourite room in the house, and I remember how happy it made me to think I'd be sharing it with her every night. Is it just the new normal when you get to our age, or is there something we can do to break these cycles? – S, via email Dear S, I can see the ribbons of nascent guilt rippling through your letter, and I feel rather sorry for you. There's no need for such self-chastisement, S. You should step back from this sleep scenario and see it for what it is – a timely readjustment to your marital arrangements. Let's deal with the elephant in the room straight off. Sex. You don't have to sleep together – as in zizz together – to make love, S. Actually spending time mutually unconscious, pillow-to-pillow, is not a requirement for an active love life. Sex and sleeping can be mutually exclusive. In fact, many couples swear by it. And yes, you are right. Judging purely by the number of letters I receive that are broadly similar to yours, advancing years bring lighter, more fractured sleep patterns. You are not alone in finding sleep in a single bed more restful and refreshing than in twitching, super-conscious coupledom. My advice is to go with the flow and stop beating yourself up about this. You're both getting older and things change, physically and psychologically. If you sleep better apart, and you have the means to do so – then sleep apart! It's not a betrayal or a failure or a calculated insult, and it's certainly not, as I say, a comment on how attractive you find one another. It's simply the next phase, the next chapter, in the long story of your lives together. Don't be frightened to turn the page. Sleep well, the pair of you.


The Guardian
10 hours ago
- The Guardian
Have you been a victim of the ‘gen Z stare'? It's got nothing on the gen X look of dread
Have you been the victim of a gen Z stare? Maybe you have but didn't realise, because you didn't know it existed, so let me explain: gen Z, now aged 13 to 28, have apparently adopted a widely deplored stare: blank, expressionless and unnerving. The stare is often deployed in customer service contexts, and many emotions can be read into it, including 'boredom, indifference, superiority, judgment or just sheer silliness', according to Forbes, whose writer described his unease in Starbucks when faced with a 'flat, zombie-like look that was difficult to read'. Hang on, aren't oversensitive snowflakes supposed to be younger people, not journalists my age? Has a generation ever been so maligned as Z? Probably, but I'm mortified by the mutterings about gen Z, when they are so self-evidently at the pointy end of older people's poor past (and present) decision-making. They don't get jobs, homes or a livable planet – but we're getting huffy about their 'rudeness' and 'lack of social skills'? Anything short of blending us into their protein shakes seems fair to me at this point. But I do get it, sort of. Young people have been treating their elders to scornful stares since homo sapiens first gruntingly suggested a 'nice walk' to their offspring, and it's easy to get defensive and lash out. As a 'meme scholar' suggested, crushingly, to NPR: 'Maybe what we're witnessing … is some boredom, especially with who they're interacting with.' That's exactly what I was afraid of. But everyone succumbs to the odd vacant stare and it's not necessarily directed at, or derogatory to, the stare-ee. I'm not qualified to parse gen Z stares (maybe they're thinking about matcha; maybe they're actually mewing?), but I can definitely explain some reasons my own people, gen X (aged between 45 and 60), go starey, slack-mouthed and silent – and why it's almost certainly not about you. We can't hear getting a bit deaf but struggling to accept it, so we're fumbling our way through the world with context clues and inept lip reading. If you say something and we just stare blankly, we're probably trying to decide whether to deploy one of our catch-all non-committal responses ('mmm'; 'right?') or ask you to repeat yourself. Again. We suspect one of our idols is standing behind that Thom Yorke or your kid's design-tech teacher? Winona Ryder or some woman you recognise from wild swimming? We need to know. Something you said triggered a memory of a public information film we saw at primary school.'Building site'; 'railway line'; 'fireworks'; 'electricity substation': there are so many trigger words that summon a horrifying mental kaleidoscope of doom. We've just remembered we were too 'cool' to top up our pension, ha ha ha, oh that realisation hits, mid-conversation, and we need to take a beat to fight the rising tide of panic. We've heard an unusual bird call but it would be rude to use the Merlin app on our that a redstart? Something weird is happening to one of our teeth.A filling coming loose, a tooth crumbling, some kind of searing, definitely expensive, pain? Mortality starts in the mouth. We started thinking about the 19-year-old Reform councillor in Leicestershire who is now responsible for children and family the 22-year-old one in charge of adult social care who previously said 'depression isn't real'. Just an ill-defined, increasingly uneasy sensation that we've forgotten something important meeting. Our passwords. The keys. Your name. You said something we don't get 'slay' and 'mid' and we hoped we weren't 'delulu' to believe we 'understood the assignment'. But you've just come out with an expression so baffling, we are simply unable to deduce any meaning from context. Maybe we are going to 'crash out'? Just give us a silent, sweaty moment. You're watching video on your phone without this one is about you and it's entirely deserved. I use my eyes to try to bore decency into sodcasters; I just wish my eyes were lasers. We're existentially we just lapse into a thousand-yard stare that semaphores: 'Help, reality has become overwhelming; I need to disassociate momentarily.' And who, of any generation, hasn't felt that this year? Perhaps the blank stare is actually proof there's more that unites than divides us. Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.