MCCALL, Idaho — It’s a story that will go down in aeronautical history around here. And one that could have turned out much differently.
A 79-year-old pilot is lucky to be alive after crashing his plane into trees nearly 60-feet tall in a remote area east of McCall Monday night.
John Gregory's plane was gobbled up by a massive ponderosa pine high above ground.
It took a volunteer firefighter, who climbed the tree limb by limb, to get him to safety.
Nearly two days later, the plane is still hanging in the trees.
Randy Acker, who is a volunteer firefighter for McCall, climbed 60 feet to get the pilot safely to the ground.
"This isn't really something that we train for, but I climb trees every day," Acker said.
Acker is not only a volunteer firefighter, he’s a professional tree climber.
"I own a hazard tree business," he said.
Meaning, he's climbed a tree a time or two before.
"I have rescued drones out of trees. I've kind of got cats out of trees," Acker said.
But this was a first for him.
"I've never climbed a tree with a plane in it," he said.
But almost two days after the crash, the Piper Cub PA-18 aircraft is still hanging up in the trees. Pieces of the plane were lying around in the snow. Randy couldn't believe it when he first saw it.
"Wow. What's holding it up there?" he exclaimed.
Randy was called in specifically because of his skill set.
"Just home putting my nephew to bed and I got a call from the fire chief asking if I wanted to climb a tree," Acker said.
After getting the call, the McCall Fire Department determined using Randy was the best way to save the pilot, who miraculously wasn't hurt in the crash.
"Knowing Randy has the expertise, his ability to climb trees helped us to make that determination," McCall Fire Capt. Brandon Swain said.
So, up Randy went up this to the top of this 60-foot tree.
"My thought was I need to get up there and see what's going on," Acker said.
After some climbing and cutting off tree limbs, he reached the pilot.
"He had to stand up in the plane and put the harness on him and then got him clipped into a safety line," Acker said.
Then both got back down to the ground, safe and sound, leaving the plane perched up in the trees.
"I've never seen anything like this happen," Acker said.
"It was amazing that everything went as smooth as it was," Swain said.
"Just glad I was able to help," Acker said.
Randy isn't done climbing this tree. He'll have to do it one more time in the coming days to get straps on the plane, so it can be hauled away by a helicopter. That way the NTSB can continue their investigation.