Two men killed last month in a plane crash were hunting coyotes while flying over a Rosebud County ranch.
David Ross Hartman and Haiden Paul Oakland died May 14 when their aircraft struck the ground outside of Forsyth, according to a preliminary report from federal investigators.
The Rosebud County Sheriff’s Office was one of several agencies that responded to a single-engine plane crash outside of Forsyth, MT on May 14, 2024
Hartman, 65, and Oakland, 19, were the only people aboard a Piper PA-18, a two-seat single-engine plane. The wreck occurred during the day, and the wind was blowing at about 10 mph. The two were searching for coyotes on the Cross Four ranch, per the National Transportation Safety Board, with the pilot speaking with the county trapper on the ground via a cell phone during the flight.
Hartman and Oakland were both licensed pilots, according to Federal Aviation Administration records, with Hartman having a certificate to fly private planes and Oakland having a commercial pilot’s certificate. The NTSB did not identify who was flying the plane at the time of the crash, but the aircraft was registered to Hartman.
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By around 7:20 that morning, the pilot of the plane told the county trapper that two coyotes had been shot and he’d seen a third before ending the call. The county trapper heard gunfire, then left the area. He called and texted the pilot several times, according to NTSB, and received no answer. A cattle foreman working on the ranch eventually spotted the crash site, and called authorities.
The plane had hit a hill at a nose-low attitude, according to NTSB, with the nose of the plane pointing toward the ground. The aircraft came to a stop nearly completely vertical. There was no scarring on the ground surrounding the wreckage, according to NTSB, while there was heavy damage plane’s engine mounts, forward fuselage and wings. Emergency crews pronounced Hartman and Oakland dead at the scene.
Oakland received his pilot’s license in August 2022, when he was 18 years old. Hartman had been flying since the 1980s.
The investigation is still ongoing, with complete reports from NTSB regarding fatal crashes sometimes taking years to complete. Investigations into plane crashes in the United States are under authority of the FAA and NTSB.
In the past 10 years, NTSB has opened 26 investigations into aircraft crashes in Montana, according to data from the organization’s website. Most of those wrecks involved single-engine, light aircraft. In April of this year, a helicopter crashed near Anaconda, according to reporting from the Montana Standard, killing its pilot.
