https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2023/09/13/husband-alaska-representative-killed-plane-crash/


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The husband of Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola, Eugene Peltola Jr., was killed Tuesday in a plane crash in Southwest Alaska, according to Peltola campaign officials.

Peltola Jr., known as “Buzzy” to those who knew him, died early Wednesday morning, according to a press release from the representative’s Chief of Staff Anton McParland.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement that the pilot of a Piper PA 18-150 Super Cub was the only one on board when a plane crashed at 8:48 p.m. Tuesday evening. The NSTB did not name the pilot who was killed, but said they flew a hunter to a remote location about 64 miles from the village of St. Mary’s, which is located on the Yukon River.

The statement said the pilot dropped the hunter off at the remote area and took off on a return flight and “appears to have crashed in an area of remote, mountainous terrain.”

Not a very happy note, but much too common. These tragedies don't respect one's status at all.

8:48 pm. Getting kinda dark out there.

We've my buddy at work told me this morning, i said to bad it wasn't her. He about jumped off of his shoes. Natives can't take a joke i guess

Weird, it didn't take long being in Washington for Peltola to meet Hillary Clinton...

I guess he wasn't obnoxiously good at EVERYTHING, regardless of what the article says.

😬

He got "Peltola'd " ?

stepped on the wrong toe , or maybe stuck it in the wrong toe , lol !

Wife met him at airport and rode a plane with he and his staff not long ago. She said he was a really nice guy whom his staff adored. Still, a Democrat....

Jim Tweto crashed in June taking off from a remote hunting camp. Peltola crashed this month also taking off from a remote hunting camp. The area Peltola was operating in was an area Tweto operated in before he passed.

The two hunters in camp that witnessed this are close friends and clients of mine. They were there when he crashed, called it in on their Inreach and stayed with him and they said he would fade in and out and each time he came to they would tell him the plane went down the first question he would ask, every time, was "is everybody else ok" even though he was the only person on board at the time. They said he was a great guy and they're pretty shaken up by all of it. Sad deal.

My son was sent to Bethel for the investigation and then not used as the Army wouldn’t fly the NTSB out. He told me it was not weather related like reported, but politics in play and the reason NTSB had to go out on a contract helo. From what he was saying it looks like wind-sheer caused the crash.

I have a picture with my buddy and Eugene standing by the plane with his moose antlers strapped to the wing and it appears to be in decent light and partly cloudy but you know how cameras are these days, may be a little darker than it appears. Its a crazy picture knowing that within just a few minutes of that he would crash and within a couple hours he would die from injuries sustained in that crash

I see some people making political statements above and I find it disturbing. According to my friends, who are lifelong conservatives(not that it matters), they say that Eugene was a perfect gentlemen and a great man. They are still trying to make sense of it all and wondering if there was anything else they could do to save him. Sad every way you look at it

Update:

https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2...e-crash-that-killed-husband-rep-peltola/

I get in the mindset of if it fits, it flies with the super cub. Especially when it has a 180 and a climb prop. Sometimes after a flight I have asked someone just how much they weighed, as it was obviously more than I was estimating. I'm sure the extra drag on one side didn't help if it was gusty and flying slow.
Meat could have shifted to the rear causing it to pitch up and stall, but doesn't seem likely if it was in the seat and belly pod. Registration says 140hp, but who knows if that's accurate.

Accidents- especially guns, and maybe airplanes- rarely involve just one thing going south. They stack up before they get you.

I noticed that the plane banked right before impacting. The antlers on that side would have produced some drag, a big gust of wind from the left, low take-off speed, loaded to the max, 140? engine, flaps or throttle error? The pod meat was "unsecured". Perhaps it had room to shift back on take-off as well - not good.

Low fuel in tanks (noted) could have sucked some air over rough ground, losing power. It looks like - on the map- he could have used more of the runway before lifting off - dunno if there were obstacles to be lifted over out there - doesn't look like it.

All speculation, and I know crap-all about flying, of course,

Final report will detail it, but "pilot error" will most likely be there, implied if not specified.

Yeah, hard to know all the details and even harder to come up with the real reason for the crash. It does appear the moose antlers prevented him from taking off with any flaps applied, so that could account for the longer ground roll. Not being able to see the area, I have no idea if he had to pull up or if something external caused that. Usually when low and slow with no flaps, a more nose level departure until you build speed would be warranted.

Eyewitness accounts can sometimes be wrong, but I assume they watched his other takeoff and compared the ground roll and nose high attitude to that. It's a shame they stopped filming for the accident review. Not that it does anything for the pilot, but others can learn from it.

And as far as pilot error, there rarely isn't a time I couldn't have done something better. Take off with the wrong flap setting, land with the wrong engine setting, etc. The human factor is always present. Thankfully a cub is super forgiving and makes up for most mistakes. Flying in Alaska isn't.

It's crazy how many folks you'll know that have died in Bush planes. If you've lived here in Alaska a while, you'll remember many.

Good pilots, sloppy pilots, prominent people, people not well known.

My first year in college, I was in a religious studies course. That flight that senator Ted Steven's died in, there were lesser known folks on that flight. One of my classmates, Connor, his mom and I think his sister was on that flight. He was such a happy, good kid. But after that flight, his whole demeanor changed. It didn't help we were in a religious course where be was trying to find answers. He would break down in tears, and would have to leave class. The teacher was a prominent catholic leader and had to console him with encouragement and prayer. He didn't make it through the semester.

This is one thing us Alaskans deal with all the time. We have to fly where a limited road can't take us.