But the noise Monday night was different.
Roberts was watching TV when he heard it.
Moments later there was an explosion.
In a field about a quarter of a mile behind Roberts' house, a Beechcraft Barron 58 leased to the U.S. Forest Service had crashed shortly after takeoff in a dense fog and was quickly engulfed in flames. Miraculously, both the pilot and a passenger escaped with minor injuries.
By Tuesday morning, all that was visible from a distance was the tail of the plane and, about 100 yards away, the two engines and the plane's nose. Crash investigators had sealed off the field from even the Missoula County Sheriff's Department and were poking through the wreckage.
Neither the Federal Aviation Administration nor the Forest Service had released the names of the two crash survivors, both Forest Service employees from Redmond, Ore., as of Tuesday.
The doomed plane had just dropped off two Forest Service pilots who live in Missoula. Those pilots had flown a Forest Service C-23 Sherpa airplane, which is used to transport smokejumpers, from Missoula to the Redmond Air Center in central Oregon, for its annual inspection. The Forest Service was unable to provide the names of the two people who had just gotten off the plane, either.
Cleared for takeoff on Runway 11, the plane ended up about a quarter mile south of the runway, and a mile or so north of Mullan Road. From the direction of the sounds he heard, Roberts said it sounded like the plane was trying to return to the airport before it went down.
Roberts said he couldn't imagine how the pilot and passenger managed to escape. After hearing the noise he walked the short distance from his living room into the kitchen, and by the time he got there the fire was raging.
Roberts called 9-1-1, then got his video camera. The footage shows a large main fire, with a couple of smaller fires on either side of it.
The two men on board evidently escaped through a rear door of the twin-engine plane. According to Paula Nelson, an information officer for the Forest Service, one of the men's beards caught fire and burned off after the plane crashed and the other complained of a sore back.
Both men were treated at area hospitals and released. They were checked again by doctors Tuesday morning.
"Those guys practice safety all the time," Nelson said. "They work on getting in and out of those harnesses. They're probably as fast as you can be."
The plane was owned by RidgeAire, Inc., of Jacksonville, Texas, and leased to the Forest Service.
The pilot and passenger were at the Missoula Aerial Fire Depot on Tuesday afternoon waiting to be questioned by FAA investigators.
"I was just thinking a couple of days ago, eventually there'll probably be a plane crash somewhere out here," said Roberts, who moved into his home eight months ago. "We're so close to the airport. It's just the law of averages."
Reporter Vince Devlin can be reached at 523-5260 or at vdevlin@missoulian.com
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)