U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy, Montana’s junior senator, made an emergency landing in a field near Ennis on Friday as the Madison County Sheriff’s Office reports that he and another passenger were unharmed.
The privately-operated plane made the emergency landing in a field near the town of Ennis in Montana’s southwest area of the state. The Sheriff’s Office said that Sheehy was piloting the plane and that there were two people on board.
First responders arrived at the scene and secured the area. They noticed a small fuel leak after the landing and “responding personnel quickly contained and remediated the situation.”
“There is no ongoing risk to public safety,” Jennifer Martens, the public information officer for Madison County, said in a press release.
The Daily Montanan sent questions to Sheehy’s office, but there was no immediate response. The Daily Montanan will update the story with any information provided by his office. A cursory check of the senator’s social media doesn’t show any comment about the situation.
The Madison County Sheriff’s Office said that the incident remains under review and federal aviation authorities are investigating the emergency landing.
Sheehy is a certified flight instructor, former U.S. Navy SEAL, and was an aerial firefighting pilot.
Friday’s emergency landing is not the first close-call landing for the freshman Republican senator.
Sheehy had been involved in a February 2019 crash in Winter Haven, Florida, that killed another passenger and Sheehy’s flight instructor. Sheehy — at that point he had more than 800 hours of commercial flying time, according to reports — and the National Transportation Safety Board eventually blamed the flight instructor for attempting to simulate a low-altitude engine failure, something not recommended because of its risk.
After the incident, Sheehy credited the neighbors who lived in the area around the crash for their heroics.