Three survive crash into home
<p>A KALISPELL POLICE OFFICER walks by the scene of a crash where a single-engine plane slammed into a home on Golden Eye Court.</p>
<p>A KALISPELL FIREFIGHTER moves through the debris field at the scene of a plane crash on Golden Eye Court in Kalispell. One of the plane’s wings was sheared off and came to rest against this pickup truck.</p>
A small plane carrying three people crashed Saturday afternoon into a home in south Kalispell — and all the occupants survived.
The homeowner was home at the time but was uninjured. A pilot, his two passengers and two dogs in the small, single-engine plane suffered minor injuries.
Before it flipped over and plowed into a two-story house on Golden Eye Court, the low-flying plane hit several trees on Ruddy Duck Drive.
One of the plane’s wings was clipped off by a tree, wrapping around a truck parked on the side of Ruddy Duck Drive. This flipped the plane upside down, according to Kalispell Fire Chief Dave Dedman, and it then skidded on the street and across a lawn before coming to a stop halfway inside the lower level of the home.
The plane apparently had just taken off from nearby Kalispell City Airport.
Neighbors responded to help extricate victims from the plane, which crashed just after 1:30 p.m. Saturday.
From across the street, Rhonda Brensinger and her daughter heard the crash.
“I was sitting on the couch playing ‘Angry Birds,’ watching a movie and we heard the crash,” Brensinger said. Initially, she thought it was a house explosion.
Brensinger went outside and was shocked at the scene before her. She won’t soon forget the grinding noise the plane made against the pavement.
“It was that grinding sound we heard first and then we heard the crash,” Brensinger said, which was followed by a brief silence.
She had never seen anything like what she saw outside her front door. “Oh my god, no,” was her first reaction.
She immediately called 911 and yelled for help from her daughter, Brystal Rodriguez, 22.
Both ran across the street to help the homeowner get the people out of the plane.
Brensinger ran to the portion of the plane outside the house while her daughter ran inside the house to the front of the airplane. They worked to clear debris and had to break one of the windows to get everyone out.
The pilot and passengers were pulled from the airplane, alive and walking, Brensinger said. She said one of the passengers was bleeding on the back of the head.
“There were also two dogs in there, a toy poodle and like a sheep kind of dog. The sheep dog’s paws were cut and looked like it had lost his claws. My daughter still has blood on her pants,” Brensinger said.
“I talked to the pilot — he said he just gassed up at the airport,” Brensinger said. “He went to take off and as he was making his turn around, it started putting.”
Brensinger said the pilot told her the trio was flying to Havre.
“I broke down crying about an hour ago saying that they were alive. It was pretty intense,” Brensinger said.
The crash is under investigation and names of those on the plane have not been released.
Final investigations of the crash will be completed by the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration.
The Kalispell Police Department as well as Kalispell, Evergreen and Smith Valley fire departments responded to the crash.
Saturday’s crash was reminiscent of an August 2004 accident when a plane crashed into a house on Fourth Avenue West in Kalispell. Two people on board the plane died in that crash.
Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.