NTSB Report: Moose Meat, Antlers, Contributed To 2023 Western Alaska Plane Crash

The National Transportation Safety Board made a final report on the reason for a 2023 Western Alaska plane crash that killed the pilot, former Alaska United States Rep. Mary Peltola’s husband Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola Jr. Peltola was in the process of transporting moose hunters and their belongings after a successful hunt, and the plane’s cargo weight, which included moose antlers and significant amounts of meat from the harvested animal, contributed to the accident.

Here’s more from Alaska Public Media:

According to the report, in the days before the accident, Peltola was transporting a group of hunters from Holy Cross to an airstrip near St. Mary’s, where the hunters set up camp. The hunters killed a moose, and Peltola made a series of two flights to transport the meat and other remains back to Holy Cross.

The report says the first flight on Sept. 12, 2023 was uneventful. During the second flight later that day, Peltola’s plane was ferrying about 117 more pounds of cargo than its maximum takeoff weight, or about 6% over. Additionally, Peltola had strapped the moose’s antlers to the plane’s right wing strut. Transporting antlers that way isn’t unusual, the report says. But NTSB Alaska chief Clint Johnson says the practice requires formal approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, which he says had not been done.

“What we do is we look at the parasitic drag that the antlers would produce,” Johnson said. “Obviously, with that large of an area out there, it acts like a small sail for the most part.”

Mary Peltola, a Democrat, lost her seat in Congress in the 2024 election to Republican Nick Begich, but she is expected to make another run at a high-level Alaska government seat – likely governor – in 2026. She also reportedly plans to pursue legal action against her husband’s employers due to the tragedy.