Plane crashes into parked aircraft while landing at Montana airport, sparking fire

KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — A small airplane landing on Monday at a Montana airport crashed into parked aircraft, triggering a large fire but inflicting no critical accidents, authorities said.

The single-engine airplane carrying 4 people was trying to land at about 2 p.m. at the Kalispell City Airport, according to Kalispell Police Chief Jordan Venezio and the Federal Aviation Administration.

A preliminary investigation confirmed the pilot misplaced control, crashing onto the runway before the airplane struck a number of parked aircraft, igniting fires on a number of planes, Kalispell police said. The fire unfold to a grassy space before it was extinguished, Venezio said.

The small, city-owned airport is just south of Kalispell, a metropolis of about 30,000 people in northwest Montana.

Witnesses said a airplane crash-landed at the end of the runway and careened into another aircraft, Kalispell Fire Chief Jay Hagen said.

The passengers have been in a position to get out on their own after it got here to a stop, Hagen said. Two have been barely harm and handled at the airport, he said.

Ron Danielson manages a close by inn and said he heard and noticed the crash before plumes of darkish smoke crammed the realm.

“It sounded like if you were to stick your head in a bass drum and somebody smacked it as hard as they could,” he said.

The flight originated in Pullman, Washington, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The airplane was recognized by the FAA as a Socata TBM 700 turboprop. It was constructed in 2011 and owned by Meter Sky LLC of Pullman, FAA data show. Company representatives didn’t immediately reply to a phone message searching for remark.

Aviation security guide Jeff Guzzetti, who used to examine crashes for both the FAA and NTSB, said incidents where planes crash into parked aircrafts occur a few occasions a yr in basic aviation.

In one high-profile incident in February, a Learjet owned by Motley Crue singer Vince Neil veered off a runway in Scottsdale, Arizona, and crashed into a parked Gulfstream, killing one particular person. The NTSB said that crash might have been associated to prior injury to the landing gear, but investigators haven’t decided the trigger.