Cosumnes Fire Capt. Crashes Plane in Idaho, Survives

A Cosumnes Community Services District Fire Department official crashed a private plane he was piloting in Idaho over the weekend, but survived with non-life-threatening injuries, according to a press release.

Brian Brown, a captain with the department, was flying with his wife and daughter in a remote area of southwest Idaho when he crashed just after midnight Sunday. They were hospitalized but have since been released.

Brown told Boise television station KTVB that a storm closed in on the plane, causing its wings to ice up and stalling it.

"I put it into a complete nose down position to get a little bit of air speed because I saw what we were going to run into on the other side, and then I basically abruptly pushed the nose back up,” Brown told the station by phone from a hospital bed.

The plane then "belly-flopped" on a mountainside and sent Brown and his wife through the windshield, KTVB reported. They huddled inside the plane and eventually realized they had cell phone service–their radio wasn't working–and then called 911.

"Responding personnel encountered 5-foot snow drifts in very challenging terrain," the television station reported. "It wasn't until around 6 a.m. [5 a.m. Pacific Time] on Sunday that search and rescue crews from a variety of agencies, including St. Luke’s Hospital, and the Army National Guard, were able to hoist all three out of the remote location and get them safely to a Boise hospital."

Brown has been with the Cosumnes Fire Department for more than 20 years, according to the press release.

“We are so relieved to hear that Captain Brown and his family are safe,” Fire Chief Tracey Hansen was quoted as saying. “I spoke to him by phone [Monday] and he is incredibly grateful for all the rescuers that took care of him and his family”.