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Plane Crashes Into Home, Pilot Walks Away Unharmed

By David Dunford
Published on: 09:17 PST, May 6, 2014

Denver, Co – A pilot is rubbing his lucky rabbits foot as a moment that could have gone very tragic ends up with just a big mess. Brian Veatch, an employee at Drag’n’Fly Banners, was buzzing around the skies with a Geico banner fluttering proudly behind him when he realized he was in trouble.

“It was carrying a large GEICO banner that was probably about 200 feet off the ground,” said eyewitness Shanna Rudd. “The airplane had its nose up as it went down.”

Veach’s plane, a single-engine Piper PA-25 Pawnee owned by Airspeed Enterprises LLC, crashed into a home on the 11000 block of Livingston Drive in the Northglenn suburb of Denver, bashing a gash down the center of the home. Minutes later it all caught on fire. Luckily no one was in the home at the time, and Veach was able to slip out of the plane and call 911, putting away the belief that the pilot had parachuted before impact. The Banner company owner,Tom Mace, believes that the FAA and onlookers confused the banner, which had detached just before impact, with a parachute, stating the planes that pull the banners are not equipped with them.

Firefighters search for remaining hot spots after a single-engine plane ripped a house in half in Northglenn, Colorado. Photo courtesy of the Associated Press.

The flames had spread to both the 2nd level of the home as well as into the basement by the time firefighters arrived. Veach, a veteran firefighter himself, tried to hold back the blaze with a garden hose until the flames and fuel fumes became too much for him. It is not known yet the monetary amount of damage that was done by the crash, but the plane itself is demolished and irreparable.

If walking away from a crash that should have been fatal wasn’t surprising enough, as his mind began to recollect Veach noticed something all too familiar in the scene that unfolded before him. The house he crashed into was one that he himself owned, which public records also confirm. The plane’s pilot himself lives around a mile away from the home he made his emergency landing in.

According to the FAA, Veach tried to land in a field near the house, and was making efforts to turn the plane when he realized he was not going to make it. Investigators say no charges will be pressed against him at this time, considering it an accident the pilot was lucky to walk away from.

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