After checking out his gutted Northglenn home, Matthew Richardson had this to say Tuesday: “My house is still standing. There was a plane sticking out of it earlier.”

“It’s bizarre and unfortunate,” Richardson added. “But there’s no loss of life.”

A pilot towing an advertising banner to fly over Coors Field crashed into the house at 11067 E. Livingston Drive on Monday afternoon — a house the pilot, Brian Veatch, owned 10 years ago.

Richardson doesn’t know Veatch, a South Metro Fire Rescue Authority firefighter, but said he wouldn’t mind meeting him.

“Maybe I’d like to hear his story,” Richardson said. “It’s pretty crazy.”

Veatch was flying a 1966 Piper Pawnee when it started losing power, said Tom Mace, Veatch’s boss and owner of Drag ‘n’ Fly Banners in Larkspur.

Veatch was looking for a field or open space to let the plane down when it crashed into the rear of the two-story home, just after he released the advertising banner, Mace said.

He said Veatch didn’t even realize it was his old home until he saw images on television.

Jim Kaylor, who lives across the street, was home Monday when he heard an unusual noise outside.

“I heard a buzz … and a big boom,” Kaylor recalled.

He looked out a window to check it out, but he didn’t see anything.

But when he went outside to put out garbage, Kaylor saw smoke rising from the back of the house.

He bolted back inside to grab a phone and call 911, but by that time police and emergency responders were pulling onto the block.

“They were here fast,” Kaylor said.

Veatch was able to escape the wreckage, and his firefighter instincts kicked in, Mace said.

Veatch quickly went through the home to make sure no one was inside, Mace said. He then grabbed a garden hose and started spraying down the wreckage and fire.

“That’s human instinct,” Richardson said. “If you mess something up, you want to fix it — if you are good-hearted. He messed something up.”

Veatch, who was at work Tuesday, declined a request to be interviewed.

The National Transportation Safety Board and Northglenn police are investigating.

Mace talked with his pilot Monday night. “He called me and said, ‘I crashed the plane,’ ” Mace said.

Two dogs inside the home were not injured.

On Tuesday, the dogs — Lulu, a 13-year-old cocker spaniel, and Toki, a 3-year-old boxer-poodle mix — were relaxing in the shade in the front yard of a neighbor’s home.

Had the plane hit the home at the same time Tuesday, Richardson and his teenage son would have been there. But he declined to speculate on what the result might have been.

On Monday, Richardson was at work, as was his wife, Jennifer Monroe. A neighbor called Monroe with the news, and she called Richardson.

“She was hysterical,” Richardson recalled. ” ‘A plane has just hit our house. It’s on fire!’ ”

Richardson said he had to hang up the phone and call Monroe back, at which point she calmed down some.

An engineer from the city inspected the home and damage Tuesday and red-tagged the structure because of concerns that it might collapse.

The incident was the third plane crash in Northglenn since the city incorporated about 40 years ago, said Sgt. Ron Haralson, a Northglenn Police Department spokesman.

The other two crashes, which happened more than 15 years ago, did not hit homes.

As Richardson talked with reporters, a truck hauling the carcass of the plane drove past.

Richardson and his family, who have lived in the house for about four years, hope to move back in after repairs. “Everything that you have in your house is destroyed. That’s my life right now,” Richardson said. “It’s crazy to look at. Hopefully we’ll be moving back in.”

Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822, knicholson@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/kierannicholson