Plane was overloaded with moose meat in crash that killed Alaska lawmaker’s husband, NTSB says

A plane that crushed and killed the husband of the representative of the time, Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, two years ago, was overloaded with moose and wood, said federal investigators this week.

Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola Jr., 57, was driving a Piper PA 18-150 Super Cub when he went into the mountains northeast of St. Mary’s on September 12, 2023.

The veteran pilot worked with a group of hunters who had camped in the distant desert and he was carrying parts of a moose they had killed, officials said.

The pilot did not use scales to weigh the cargo and the plane was 117 pounds on its maximum take -off weight, according to the final report of the NTSB.

Moin woods have been fixed to the right wing of the plane, a normal practice in Alaska. But that requires a signature of the FAA and there was “no evidence that such approval had been granted to the Airplane accident”, according to the report.

The aircraft carried around 500 moose pounds – 110 pounds of leg, 150 pounds of posterior quarters, 50 pounds of ribs, 110 pounds from various other cuts and 70 pounds of wood, depending on the NTTSB recordings.

“The descendant currents, as well as the overweight plane and the drag and the imbalance of the additional lateral weight caused by the right woods, would probably have led that the aircraft had an insufficient power and / or power of control to maneuver over the field,” said the report.

Shortly after takeoff, Hunter Travis Hopkins was on the ground and “recalled hearing a spray sound and then a silence”, according to the previously disclosed conclusions of the NTSB.

Hopkins ran to the top of a neighboring hill and spotted wrecks before rushing to the scene, finding “the pilot still aware of the front seat, but he had suffered facial injuries,” said the NTSB.

Hopkins used satellite communications to request help at 8:48 p.m., officials said.

A helicopter of the Alaska National Air Guard arrived at one point between 1:30 am and 2 a.m. in the hope of taking the pilot to the nearest hospital about 400 miles away, in Anchorage, officials said.

The pilot spoke and did not seem to have obvious pain, but “he became less reactive in the next two hours until he was not reactive and that they can no longer find a pulse,” said the NTSB.

The “cause of death of the victim was multiple injuries to the blunt force and his mode of death was an accident,” said the NTSB.

The pilot’s wife, Mary Peltola, became a national figure in August 2022 when she became the first native of Alaska to win a siege in the congress.

The Democrat exceeded the rivals of the GOP which included the former governor Sarah Palin to take place which had previously been detained by the representative Don Young, who died in March of the same year at the age of 88.

Peltola won the complete mandate elections in November 2022 before it passed last year by Republican Nick Begich.