An airplane carrying U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy made an emergency landing in Madison County on Friday after what a spokesperson described as a mechanical engine failure, ending up in a field near the town of Ennis.
There were two people on board, and neither was injured.
Mike Berg said the landing came during a routine flight training exercise Sheehy completes twice each year. Berg did not say what type of plane was involved, and there was no word Friday on the details of the failure that forced the landing.
Sheehy, a Montana Republican, is an FAA-certified commercial pilot and certified flight instructor, which made the flight training session part of his regular routine rather than an unusual trip. That routine, however, was interrupted by the engine trouble that sent the aircraft down safely in an open field.
The unanswered question is not whether anyone was hurt. It is what went wrong in the air and whether the same training flight that Sheehy repeats twice a year will be able to continue without a fuller explanation of the mechanical problem.
