Lake Worth family still living in hotel months after military jet crash damaged home

Nearly two months after a military plane crashed in a Lake Worth neighborhood, one family is still living out of a hotel room.

LAKE WORTH, Texas - Nearly two months after a military plane crashed in a Lake Worth neighborhood, one family is still living out of a hotel room.

The Seller family is frustrated.

They want to get back to their normal lives, but extensive home damage is making it impossible.

Mark and Joyce Sellers, along with their son, Chris, still get jittery when military jets fly overhead after their Lake Worth home was devastated back on September 19, when a U.S. Navy aircraft from Kingsville, conducting a military training exercise, crashed into it, injuring both the student and instructor pilots as they ejected just before impact.

Chris Sellers was sitting inches from the point of impact with his 9-year-old daughter. Both narrowly escaped harm.

"I just remember a boom, glass shattering, and I reached over and grabbed my daughter and got on top of her," he recalled.

Mark and Joyce were out shopping at the time.

"Very scary. We could have lost him and lost my granddaughter," Mark said.

By October 1, the military posted a social media message stating the clean up from the crash was complete.

But the Sellers family, still in a hotel after losing most of their belongings, offer a different scenario. One of frustration.

"I’m just upset the military is saying everything is cleaned up," Joyce said. "The plane is gone but everything is not cleaned up. And we’re just left holding the pieces trying to keep it all together."

Mark’s 84-year-old father lives in the home’s main structure. They built the rear addition in 2017 so they could move in and be close to him after his wife died.

"We were here to take care of him," Mark said. "All he says is, ‘I just want to go home.’"

The Sellers are trying to remain patient, but they said it feels as though they’ve been forgotten.

"Our insurance company is dealing with it and they are saying we have to treat it like a car hit your house, but a car doesn’t fall out of the sky and hit your house," Joyce explained.

Tarrant County Military Housing