The pilot of a single-engine airplane that crashed into a Kalispell home on Feb. 4 told an investigator that the aircraft began losing power shortly after takeoff, according to a preliminary aviation report released Tuesday.
The pilot, identified in an Associated Press story as Michael Seaman, and his two passengers sustained minor injuries after a Piper aircraft crashed into the first floor of a two-story house on Golden Eye Court at roughly 1:45 p.m. A resident who was home at the time was uninjured.
The National Transportation Safety Board released a preliminary report of the accident, revealing details of the crash compiled by NTSB investigator-in-charge Van McKenny.
The report states that the aircraft departed Kalispell City Airport and behaved normally before the engine “started to sputter and lose power” between 300 and 500 feet above a residential neighborhood. The pilot told McKenny he selected the longest street to make a forced landing, lowered the aircraft’s flaps and slowed to a minimum controllable airspeed. The airplane collided with a number of vehicles and trees, causing the left wing to separate from the fuselage. The airplane embedded itself into the front of the house and the pilot escaped through a side window and helped the two passengers out as well.
The pilot told McKenny that he had fueled the airplane with 45 gallons of fuel and performed a complete engine run-up and preflight check before takeoff.
Seaman of Kalispell was the plane’s pilot and his 18-year-old daughter Kayla Seaman was also onboard, according to Seaman’s ex-wife, Mary Graham, in an Associated Press story. The group, including a second female passenger, whom Graham declined to identify, was headed to a wedding in Chinook.
Graham praised her ex-husband’s handling of the single-engine airplane, the story said.
“He’s my hero. He saved my baby’s life,” Graham said.
The crash was the eighth incident that could be classified as an accident at or near the municipal airport in the last 20 years, according to the Air Safety Institute of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA).