Dramatic Cockpit Video of Moment Small Plane Crashes into Desert Released

Dramatic video from inside the cockpit of a plane conducting an emergency landing in the Mojave Desert in Southern California was released Monday by the San Bernardino Fire Department.

The pilot, identified as Mark Dilullo, and his wife, Nicole, both survived the hard landing completely unharmed, authorities said.

According to a post from San Bernardino Fire Department, the pair were flying from Needles, California bound for Chino, California in a Beechcraft Sundowner on Sunday, June 30 testing the results of some recent maintenance work that had been completed on the plane when the engine lost oil pressure, and stalled just before noon.

Dilullo told CBS LA that he woke his wife to tell her about the emergency landing and had her record it, in order to give her something to do while the plane was gliding to the ground.

Because there were no airfields around him, the pilot was forced to make his emergency landing in the middle of the Mojave National Preserve, located just north of the I-40 near Ludlow, California.

Video showed the pilot and the passenger remain completely silent, the plane's propeller not moving as radio chatter can be heard in the background. As the plane comes closer to the ground, the footage is briefly lost, when the plane hits the desert floor, with alarms and the passenger yell, just as the video ends.

The San Bernardino Fire Department shared photos from the scene that showed the plane's tire had fallen off and the damaged wing on the right side of the plane. The pair faced a four or five mile hike to the closest road, or a very long wait for rescue crews to reach them.

"The long wait combined with the triple-degree heat prompted the H325 crew to load the pilot and passenger into their helicopter and transport them to the Barstow-Daggett airport to get them out of the elements and connect with ground transportation home," the SBFD wrote.

Photo: San Bernardino Fire Department