Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., made an emergency landing in a Montana field Friday while piloting a plane that experienced engine failure.
The first-term senator was flying a private plane with one other person aboard when he landed near the town of Ennis, the Madison County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Mike Berg, the senator’s chief of staff, said in a post on X that Sheehy was participating in a “routine flight training exercise which he completes twice a year.”
Sheehy is a Federal Aviation Administration-certified commercial pilot and certified flight instructor, according to his Senate website.
“The aircraft experienced a mechanical engine failure,” Berg wrote, adding that neither Sheehy nor the co-pilot were injured.
Police said a minor fuel leak was reported after the landing. The incident is under review and federal aviation authorities have been notified, police added.
When contacted for further details, Sheehy’s office referred NBC News to the chief of staff’s statement.
In 2019, Sheehy was involved in a fatal plane crash when he was a student pilot. He was on the plane with a flight instructor when it crashed into a Florida home, killing the instructor and injuring a teenage girl inside the home. Sheehy sustained minor injuries, according to police.
The National Transportation Safety Board’s final report included testimony from Sheehy saying he was not flying the plane when it crashed.
Sheehy, 40, has served in Congress since 2025. Before becoming a lawmaker, he was a Navy SEAL and completed several deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. He left the military in 2014 after being wounded in the line of duty.
