2 Years After Plane Destroyed Home, Family Sues for $18M

An Oregon family is seeking $18 million in damages after a flight school training accident turned their home into a crash site. Chris and Jana Ferris say their lives were upended when a twin-engine Piper Seminole from Hillsboro Aero Academy plummeted onto their Newberg house in October 2023. Miraculously, the Ferris family, including their four kids and the family dog, survived without major injuries, but their home was a total loss, per the Oregonian.

The Ferrises are now suing the flight school, Alaska Airlines, and Alaska Air Group subsidiary Horizon Air—operators of the Ascend Pilot Academy—along with the estate of Barrett Bevacqua, the 20-year-old cadet pilot who died in the incident. The suit blames the catastrophe on negligence and says it caused the Ferris family emotional distress, including from the ordeal of being displaced six times while battling insurance and rebuilding woes. The family's attorney says the crash's aftermath has been "a tremendous pain," with contamination concerns from spilled aviation fuel adding to the chaos.

According to federal investigators, Bevacqua and a flight instructor were practicing engine failure recovery when the plane flipped, stalled, and went into an unrecoverable spin, plummeting more than 5,000 feet. The student survived, but Bevacqua and the flight instructor didn't. Bevacqua's family, meanwhile, expressed surprise at being named in the lawsuit, noting he wasn't in command of the flight at the time of the crash, and have filed their own $27 million case against the flight school.

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"The pilot in command was the flight instructor, who was there to instruct, correct mistakes, and prevent accidents," a family statement notes, per KPTV. In February, the National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the crash, per KATU, noting the "probable cause(s)" to be "the pilot receiving [instructions'] failure to maintain control of the airplane and the flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the flight, which resulted in a stall/spin from which they were unable to recover." Alaska Airlines confirmed that it supported Bevacqua's training but declined to discuss the legal fight.