Peltola sues over husband’s fatal Alaska crash; investigation points to decisions he made

Eugene Peltola Jr., center, watches the ranked choice voting tabulation on Nov. 23, 2022, at 49th State Brewing in Anchorage. His daughter Kaeli Peltola and wife U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Anchorage, were with him. Rep. Peltola was learning that she was re-elected. (Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

Former Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the people who employed her husband Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola Jr. at the time of his fatal plane crash in 2023.

The suit came shortly before the two-year statute of limitations deadline to bring a case and just days before the National Transportation Safety Board released a final report on the crash.

Peltola Jr. died on Sept. 12, 2023, when the Piper PA-18-150 Super Cub he was flying crashed shortly after takeoff from a hunting camp near the lower Yukon River in Southwest Alaska.

The NTSB concluded that the crash was due to Peltola’s decision to load the plane beyond its rated capacity and to tie moose antlers to one of the plane’s wings, a common practice in rural Alaska that nonetheless formally requires permission from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Those factors “degraded takeoff performance and flight characteristics resulting in a loss of airplane control during takeoff into an area of mechanical turbulence and downdrafts,” federal investigators wrote.

The report was released on July 22. On July 18, Mary Peltola filed a civil lawsuit in Bethel Superior Court.

That filing was first reported by KYUK-FM public radio, a station that may close due to federal budget clawbacks approved by Congress.

The suit alleges that the owners of the plane — also Peltola Jr.’s employers — caused him to “fly excessive hours, to fly without adequate sleep or rest, (and) to fly under unreasonably dangerous conditions,” conditions that contributed to his death.

It names Bruce Werba and two companies he operated — Alaska Pike Safaris and Wilderness Adventures LLC, and Neitz Aviation Inc. — as the defendants.

Peltola Jr. had held senior positions with the federal government, retiring in 2022 as the regional director of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs for Alaska.

• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.