A pilot-less plane came to rest in the back yard of a home under construction in Saamis Heights at about 8:30 p.m. on Monday night. The Transportation Safety Board is expected to investigate the accident, in which no one was hurt and damage to property was minimal.--News Photo Collin Gallant
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
Jenman Luk says he feels very lucky after an unmanned light plane crashed into the back deck of the home he is renovating in the Medicine Hat community of Saamis Heights on Monday night.
Luk, who currently lives with his family about two blocks from the house on Sunset Drive, said he didn’t know what to think when he received a call from authorities telling him he needed to come to the unoccupied residence.
“I usually don’t pick up the phone when I’m putting the kids to bed, but I had a gut feeling,” Luk told the News on Tuesday. “My heart just dropped; I didn’t know if someone had been hurt, or if there was a fire. When I found out I was just blank, stunned.”
The single-seat, light-weight aircraft sat crumpled in the back yard Tuesday morning. One wing was wrapped around a support pillar for a second-storey deck, and the other showed minor damage after apparently hitting a neighbour’s tree and bending a row of wrought-iron fence stakes.
Luk said the damage to his house is minimal, and he’s happy the crash didn’t happen during the day when workers may have been present.
Overall, the long vacant outcrop of coulee that extends off the back of the home wasn’t a bad spot to land, perhaps the best considering the alternatives, he said.
“I don’t think I’m cursed; I should go get a lottery ticket because it’s one in a million,” said Luk.
Just how the plane came into flight wasn’t officially addressed by authorities.
Luk said it’s his understanding maintenance was being performed on the plane when the ignition caught at high throttle and the plane got away from person working on it.
Medicine Hat Fire Service crews responded to the crash.
The site was roped off by airport officials who are awaiting transportation safety board investigators.
The plane left a rural airport known as the Schlenker Airport, located about four miles south of the city, and came to a stop at about 8:30 p.m.
It apparently flew north, passing the county hamlet of Desert Blume, several sets of power lines, the city subdivision of Coulee Ridge and the Cottonwood Coulee Golf Course, before landing at the house facing eastward.
After hitting the back of one house, a wheel managed to come to rest on the front driveway of a neighbouring residence.
Luk said his family has been slowly working away at finishing the house before moving in. The exterior isn’t finished, but an array of new windows on the house still have the stickers on.
As it is, he said, the damage is probably so slight he won’t file an insurance claim, and his kids – who took selfies with the wreckage – have a great story.
“We’re very lucky,” he said.
