Video shows small plane making emergency landing in middle of California desert

Chino, Calif. -- Authorities released video Monday of the emergency landing of a small plane in the middle of Southern California's Mojave Desert, CBS Los Angeles reports.

The San Bernardino County Fire Department tweeted out footage from Sunday of the gliding low, then plane crash landing near Ludlow in the Mojave National Preserve.

The video, taken through the front cockpit window, shows a motionless propeller. The video shakes violently as the plane hits the ground and comes to a stop.

The pilot, Mark Dilullo, owns an aviation maintenance business. He was in the Beechcraft Sundowner with his wife, Nicole, testing the results of some recent maintenance work when the engine stalled.

They were returning from Needles, Calif. to Chino when the engine lost fuel, and Dilullo knew he would have to make an emergency landing without a working propeller within minutes.

Dilullo told CBS L.A. Nicole was sleeping at the time, and when he woke her to tell her about the landing she was visibly nervous, so he told her to record it, to try to keep her occupied.

"I said, 'Hey, we're gonna land in the desert,' and she said, 'I don't want to,"' Dilullo said. "Then I said that the engine was gonna quit and we're not going to have a choice."

It was 105 degrees at the time and they couldn't walk out on their own because there were no roads in the area.

"I'm pretty sure what I said was, 'I'm not up to walking home, and I don't want to spend the night here,"' Dilullo recalled.

They were thankful to the San Bernardino County Fire crew that flew out to pick them up. Both were unhurt.