Lawsuit against Sheehy over Florida plane crash dismissed • Daily Montanan

On July 3, the attorney for aircraft maintenance company Amphibians Plus LLC filed a notice with the court stating that the claims between the Ngalamulume family and the company had been settled and would be completed within 60 days.

But Sheehy was not mentioned in the statement; both he and Amphibians Plus were named defendants in the case.

It remains unclear whether Sheehy was involved in the likely settlement, as neither his campaign team nor nearly all of the attorneys involved in the case responded to questions from the Daily Montanan. A copy of the settlement is not included in the court records for the case and is often kept confidential by the attorneys and parties involved.

When the Daily Beast first reported on the lawsuit and Sheehy's involvement last year, it noted that the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) final report on the plane crash placed blame for the missteps that led to the crash on Sheehy's flight instructor.

Because the lawsuit was dismissed, the family cannot file another lawsuit against Sheehy in the same court, claiming he was negligent and caused the accident.

In the first amended complaint filed in 2021, Sheehy was accused of two counts of negligence: one by Guillaume and Esmerance Ngalamulume for property damage to their home as a result of the accident, and another by her daughter Carmelle Ngalamulume for bodily injuries sustained in the accident, disability, mental anguish and loss of earning capacity.

According to case files, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) final report on the crash and other documents related to the investigation, including Sheehy's interview with investigators, Sheehy and another man were trained on a multi-engine seaplane by instructor James Wagner to obtain additional certification.

Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, had already logged more than 800 hours of flight time and was a commercial pilot, owned a single-engine landplane, a single-engine seaplane and was also certified as a flight instructor. Five years earlier, he had founded his aerial firefighting company, Bridger Aerospace, in Bozeman.

Sheehy and the other trainer, Timothy Cherwin, had already completed one flight each that day, taking turns flying and observing while Wagner coached them. Sheehy told investigators that they refueled and inspected the plane before Sheehy was scheduled to take his second flight of the day, during which they would practice procedures for engine failure and water landings.

Cherwin chose not to fly, as he had on Sheehy's first flight. After takeoff and about 300 feet above the ground, according to Sheehy's interview with an NTSB investigator, Wagner reduced the throttle on the left engine – the critical engine – causing it to lose power completely. Wagner took over flight controls while both attempted to restart it, according to the documents.

But the engine wouldn't restart. Sheehy was retracting the landing gear and trying to retract the plane's flaps when Wagner decided they were going to miss their chosen emergency landing spot, according to his interview. Wagner turned the plane left toward a closer landing spot, but it likely slowed below its minimum flight speed, according to the NTSB report. The left wing fell off and the plane crashed nose-first into the house.

Sheehy wrote in a statement to the NTSB that he did not lose consciousness during the crash and immediately crawled to Wagner to check his pulse. He wrote that Wagner's head was badly injured and “he was clearly not going to make it.” He said he called 911 and helped the family inside the house.

“A guy across the street then turned off the power and I took off my shirt to help the injured woman,” he wrote. “At that point, emergency responders arrived and took over.”

The NTSB report states that Sheehy suffered “minor injuries” and Carmelle Ngalamulume was “seriously injured.”

Sheehy told KBUL News Talk in 2019 that neighbors deserved credit for their bravery after the accident, and provided the radio station with a photo of himself with one of those neighbors immediately after the accident, showing him shirtless, bruised and bleeding.

The NTSB's final report said Wagner's decision to simulate the critical engine failure at such a low altitude left “little room” for successfully maintaining flight and his failure to maintain sufficient airspeed “resulted in a loss of control.”

“The National Transportation Safety Board has determined the probable causes of the accident to be a total loss of left engine power for undetermined reasons and the instructor's failure to maintain airspeed during the emergency landing maneuver, which resulted in a loss of control. A contributing factor to the accident was the instructor's decision to conduct a simulated low-speed engine failure,” the report concluded.

In his interview, Sheehy told the investigator that Wagner did not tell him he was simulating a critical engine failure or at such a low altitude. The report states that Sheehy said he “did not know what (Wagner) was thinking.” He said he believed Wagner's engine throttling flooded the engine and did not allow it to restart.

An autopsy confirmed that Wagner died of blunt impact injuries. The left engine was later tested and started immediately and ran without interruption at all power settings, the NTSB's final report said.

It was also pointed out that a Federal Aviation Administration brochure on flying twin-engine airplanes states that the left engine is the critical engine, the failure of which would most affect the performance and handling of the airplane, and strongly cautions against conducting engine failure drills at low altitudes.

“A low-altitude engine failure is never worth the risk involved,” the brochure states. “Multi-engine aircraft instructors should approach simulated engine failures at altitudes below 400 feet (above ground) with extreme caution, and failures at altitudes below 200 feet (above ground) should be reserved for simulators and training devices.”

The final report was not released until December 3, 2020, long after the original lawsuit was filed. In the lawsuit filed in 2021, the Ngalamulumes' lawyers alleged that Sheehy “committed certain negligence by failing to follow the flight instructor's instructions during the flight, which made compensation from the flight instructor impossible.”

In Sheehy's response to the lawsuit, his attorney denied most of the allegations made in the lawsuit and also raised positive defense arguments, including that Sheehy was not the pilot in command of the aircraft at the time of the accident because he was the student pilot and did not yet have a multi-engine marine aircraft rating. The NTSB report referred to Sheehy as the pilot and Wagner as the flight instructor.

Sheehy's response also states that Wagner was responsible as pilot in command of the aircraft and accuses him of improperly operating the aircraft, failing to properly instruct Sheehy and failing to follow industry standards for flight training. It also states that the aircraft's owner, ESP Aviation, is responsible for Wagner because he is employed by them.

Later in the trial, Sheehy's attorney again claimed that he “was not involved in any decisions that led to the crash and was not flying the aircraft at the time of the crash.”

The case dragged on through 2022 and 2023, but in May of this year, the court scheduled a case management conference for July 3. On the day of that conference, Amphibians Plus's attorney filed notice that the parties were attempting to settle the case, and the court announced five days later that it would review a possible settlement in 60 days.

The joint agreement to dismiss the case with prejudice, signed by attorneys for all parties, was filed on September 10, and the final order to dismiss the case with prejudice was signed on September 11.

It remains unclear whether Sheehy was involved in the alleged settlement and what conditions the agreement met.

Rolando Santiago, one of the Ngalamulumes' attorneys, said Wednesday he could not access the files because the office was closed due to the approaching Hurricane Helene. He referred the Daily Montanan to the plaintiffs' lead attorney, Seattle-based Anthony Marsh.

Marsh did not respond to several phone calls and emails this week asking whether Sheehy was involved in the agreement or what conditions would be met.

Sheehy's attorney, Jennifer Huang of New York, did not respond to an email seeking clarification on whether Sheehy was involved in the settlement. Amphibians Plus' attorney, Roberto Torricella of Miami, did not respond to a phone message or email Wednesday asking whether Sheehy was involved in the settlement.

In November, Sheehy will face incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Tester, Green Party candidate Robert Barb and Libertarian Sid Daoud.

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