Overloaded plane with moose meat crashes in Alaska, pilot dies

A small plane crashed in Alaska due to excessive moose meat and antlers. Photo / Getty Images

Too much moose meat and a set of antlers strapped to a wing brought a small plane down in Alaska, killing its pilot, according to a crash report published this week.

Eugene Peltola died hours after his aircraft – carrying over 500 pounds (225kg) of moose meat – plunged into mountains near St Mary’s in southwest Alaska in September 2023.

A report released yesterday by the United States National Transportation Safety Board found the hefty meat cargo meant the plane was more than 45kg over its take-off weight when it left a remote airstrip in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.

The presence of a pair of moose antlers on the right wing strut of the plane – a common practice in Alaska – would likely have made flight even trickier, the report said, because of their effect on aerodynamics.

Clint Johnson, the Alaska region chief for NTSB, was cited by local media as saying there were three main factors that contributed to the crash of the Piper PA 18-150 Super Cub.

“Number one was, obviously, the overweight condition – no ifs, ands, or buts there,” he said, according to the website Alaskanewssource.com.

“The parasitic drag from the antlers that were attached to the right wing, and then also the last thing would be the wind, the mechanical wind turbulence at the end of the take-off area, which unfortunately, led to this accident.

“If you would have been able to take one of those items out, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. But those things all in combination led to this tragic accident.”

Peltola was the husband of former US Representative Mary Peltola, the first Alaska Native to sit in Congress.

The Democrat beat former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in a 2022 special election, but lost her re-election bid in November last year.

– Agence France-Presse