Lawsuit Filed in Fatal Flight School Accident

Oregon family seeks $15M in compensation after a Piper Seminole crashed into their home.

Meg Godlewski

Wednesday, September 24, 2025 at 12:28 PM ET

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Edited By:

Travis Tingle

Firefighters from Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue stand by to extinguish any fire that erupts from a small airplane that crashed Tuesday, October 3, 2023, into a home in Newberg, Oregon. The plane never caught fire, but two people aboard the craft died and another was injured. [Credit: Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue]

Key Takeaways:

An Oregon family has filed a $15 million lawsuit against Hillsboro Aero Academy and Ascend Pilot Academy after a training aircraft crashed into and destroyed their home.
The October 2023 crash, which killed the student and instructor, was attributed by the NTSB to the trainee pilot's failure to maintain control and the flight instructor's inadequate supervision during a multi-engine VMC maneuver, leading to an unrecoverable stall/spin.
The Ferris family, whose home was damaged beyond repair and who have experienced significant financial and emotional strain, alleges negligence and trespass by the flight school and pilot academy.

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A Portland, Oregon-area family has filed a lawsuit against a flight school and an airline pilot training program for damages caused when an aircraft on a training flight crashed into their home.

The suit, which seeks $15 million in compensation, was filed by Washington state aviation attorney Mark Lindquist, best known for representing the families of the victims of the two Boeing 737 Max crashes and the passengers aboard an Alaska Airlines 737 Max that lost a door plug while flying from Portland to Ontario, California.