GOP senator made emergency landing in jet owned by NASA chief he helped install

The plane U.S. Sen Tim Sheehy made an emergency landing near Ennis last Friday is a private aircraft owned by the NASA administrator Sheehy heavily supported during his nomination process.

According to the FAA incident report, the aircraft experienced engine issues and Sheehy, a Navy Seal and former aerial firefighter, was required to make a forced landing in a field.

The aircraft involved was an Aero Vodochedoy L-39, a Czech-made fighter jet trainer owned by Jared Isaacman.

Sheehy’s chief of staff Mike Berg said in a post on social media that Sheehy was engaged in a “routine flight training exercise” and that neither Sheehy nor his co-pilot were injured.

The identity of the co-pilot has not been released.

Last Friday evening Isaacman was on board the USS John P Murtha to welcome home the astronauts of Artemis II.

Isaacman is a tech billionaire, pilot and civilian astronaut who led the private Polaris Dawn mission to space, which included the first commercial spacewalk.

In Bozeman, Isaacman owns a hangar which houses a fleet of fighter jets used for training exercises and airshows.

According to NASA, Isaacman created employee incentive flights to recognize and reward agency employees for “exceptional work” by flying them in his personal F-5 jet.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, fifth from left, poses for a photograph with NASA employees and F-5 pilots following an employee incentive flying event using Isaacman’s personal F-5 aircraft, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Courtesy NASA

“Administrator Isaacman has an extensive background in aviation and has generously made his privately owned F-5 aircraft available for NASA workforce incentive flights,” NASA spokesperson Bethan Stevens said in a post announcing the program. The flights are covered by the Administrator with “zero burden to the taxpayer.”

Sheehy is a senator, not a NASA employee, but he was crucial to Isaacman’s bid to lead NASA.

President Donald Trump’s appointment of Isaacman to lead the nation’s space agency came shortly after his election, and Sheehy introduced him to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Sheehy said he personally knew Isaacman from sharing an aviation community in Montana and “cooperating with him on improving the education experience for our next generation of explorers, astronauts, engineers and pilots who attend Space Camp.”

But Isaacman’s nomination was derailed due to some political tensions with Trump and another private space billionaire, Elon Musk, with whom Isaacman has ties.

Sheehy, reported Semafor, is the reason Isaacman ended up with the job.

He reportedly put a hold on one of Trump’s nominations for the U.S. ambassador to India in order to force the administration’s hand to fill the NASA administrator job. Shortly after Sheehy made a deal with Vice President J.D. Vance to drop the hold in exchange for the administration moving forward with a NASA nomination, Semafor reported, Isaacman was renominated.

Ultimately he was approved in a bipartisan Senate vote last December.

Sheehy’s office did not respond to questions about his relationship with Isaacson or the use of the aircraft.

Isaacman’s press office did not return questions from the Daily Montanan.

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