Plane in Alaska Crash Was Overloaded With Moose Meat and Antlers, N.T.S.B. Says

New York Times

4 days ago

A small plane that crashed in rural Alaska in 2023, killing the husband of a congresswoman, was weighed down by too much moose meat and faced drag from a set of antlers mounted on its right wing strut, federal investigators said on Tuesday.
The plane, a single-engine Piper PA-18-150 Super Cub, crashed shortly after takeoff in a mountainous area of southwestern Alaska on Sept. 12, 2023. Only the pilot, Eugene Peltola Jr., 57, the husband of former U.S. Representative Mary Peltola of Alaska, was onboard and died in the crash.
'The overweight airplane and the added drag and lateral weight imbalance caused by the antlers on the right wing,' along with downdrafts, 'would likely have resulted in the airplane having insufficient power and/or control authority to maneuver above terrain,' the National Transportation Safety Board said in its report on probable cause findings.
There were also turbulent flight conditions in the area of the crash at 8:45 p.m., the time when the plane went down, the report said.
Mr. Peltola had taken a group of hunters and equipment days earlier from Holy Cross, a community of about 200 people near the Yukon River, to an airstrip nearly 100 miles northwest in St. Mary's, Alaska, the agency said in its final report on the crash.
The group set up camp next to the runway in St. Mary's, the report said. One day before the crash, the group bagged a moose and Mr. Peltola was asked to transport the meat.
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