Plane crashes are not a common occurrence and it is even rarer when a plane crash is caught on tape. A video of a plane crash has gone viral over the internet.
Four men from Idaho were on a small vintage one engine-plane when the aircraft lost altitude and hit several trees, causing it to turn upside down and crash in the Bear Valley area near Stanley, Idaho on June 30. The whole thing was caught on tape from a camera that the passengers had in the cockpit.
"It wasn't anything we were trying to film," said Williams, 38, of Boise told The Associated Press. "It was a beautiful day and we were just really having fun recording what we were doing."
"The pilot said, 'Brace for the trees,' so we turned and then all of a sudden he started hitting the trees, hitting the wings, one of the passengers, Alex Ahrets told ABC. "The plane started turning and hit head on, running into the trees and then rolled over and landed on its nose and roof and skidded to a stop."
All of the passengers survived, but the crash did leave them with injuries. The pilot, Les Gropp, suffered from a broken jaw and ribs. The other men, Tol Gropp, 38, Nathan Williams, 38, and Alex Arhets, 41, received minor injuries.
Williams was taping the ride with a new GoPro video camera and was able to capture everything on tape.
"You could see the debris and parts of the windshield and dirt and sticks flying into the cabin," Ahrets told ABC. "We came to a rest and stopped and everyone was kind of moving their hands and feet and fingers and toes and all asking each other, 'Are you OK?' And everyone was OK."
The scene that Ahrets recalled can be seen in the video. One of the men then retrieves the camera and continues to record the pilot lying on the ground with views of the damages plane in the background.
A couple passing nearby watched the event happen. They called emergency services and soon firefighters, a paramedic, EMTs, trucks from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and a Life Flight helicopter arrived.
"You see how fast something happens, something that's life-threatening," Williams told The Associated Press. "That's kind of people's worst fears and it kind of came true for us, in a way."
"I'm ecstatic to be here," Ahrets told ABC "Life takes on a whole new meaning."
The original video on YouTube had received over three million views but it was removed due to its "shocking and disgusting content," which goes against YouTube policy. Part of the video showed the men covered in blood from their injuries.
Warning: The following video may be frightening and graphic.
