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:

A Portland-area family has filed a $15 million lawsuit against Hillsboro Aero Academy and Ascend Pilot Academy after a multi-engine training aircraft crashed into their home in October 2023, destroying it and causing significant financial and emotional distress.
The NTSB's final report identified the probable cause of the fatal crash as the trainee pilot’s failure to maintain control and the flight instructor’s inadequate supervision during a V_MC demonstration, which resulted in an unrecoverable stall/spin.
The lawsuit, brought by attorney Mark Lindquist, alleges negligence and trespass, seeking $2.5 million for each of the six family members who lost their home and have endured multiple relocations and emotional strain since the accident.

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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.