The Transportation Safety Board is investigating a downed plane in a Medicine Hat neighbourhood.
At around 9:30 p.m. Monday night, the TSB said it was made aware of a pilotless plane crashing into a house in the Saamis Heights neighbourhood of Medicine Hat, overlooking the Cottonwood Coulee Golf Course.
The plane was identified as a Bellanca Citabria, a light single-engine two-seat plane.
The plane took off just before 8:30 p.m. from Schlenker Airport, located south of the city.
The TSB said there were no injuries and no one was aboard the aircraft.
Jenman Luk, who owns the property, received a call late Monday night from emergency authorities and rushed to the house that was under construction.
“The dispatcher said that a plane flew into the house, crashed into the house. So I was like, ‘What!?’,” Luk said. “I didn’t know if it was a prank, it just seemed so wild.
“We went there to the house and sure enough, there was a plane that crashed kind of in the corner. We have a big deck across the back, so it’s protecting the whole house. But they hit the back post and kind of slid it into the side fence there.”
Luk wasn’t upset at the incident and said the home still being under construction was good timing for something like this to happen.
He said he spoke with the owner of the plane over the phone, who told him he had been doing some maintenance work on it before the plane took off.
“It just took off. Once the engine started, it just took right off.”
The TSB has dispatched investigators to the southeastern Alberta city. A spokesperson said it was too early to say what the incident’s causes and contributing factors were.
“TSB investigators will gather information and assess the occurrence to determine the next steps,” the spokesperson said in an email to Global News.
Luk said he received an apology from the owner.
–with files from CHAT News
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