Pilot cheats death as horrifying footage shows plane crashing into ocean

A veteran pilot narrowly escaped death after making a botched emergency water landing.

Mark Finkelstein was flying his single engine plane near Oak Island Pier in North Carolina when he started suffering engine failure - meaning he was unable to fly the plane back to the nearest airport. Instead, the 17-year veteran had to ditch the aircraft in the ocean.

Terrifying footage shows the moment the aircraft flips over, landing upside down after he inched it closer towards the surface. In the aftermath of the crash, photographs showed the majority of the aircraft vertically submerged. At the back of the cabin there was a small air pocket which he used to survive until rescuers could pull him out.

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Rescuers guided the pilot from the plane's wreckage feet-first. Eventually, he managed to escape through the windshield, according to the Oak Island Fire Department.

In an interview with WECT 6, he explained he'd been in the air for just 13 minutes and had been planning to fly for just 20 when the engine cut out.

He explained: "It was literally going to be about a 20-minute flight just down the length of Oak Island, turn around and come back in.

"At some point, the engine started to lose power so the RPM started to go down. The engine just stopped altogether and the propeller just stopped and at that point it was very clear that I was going to be making a landing in the water."

Finkelstein feared he wouldn't make it back to the Cape Fear Regional Jetport where he had initially departed from. Not wanting to cause further injury, he avoided the packed Oak Island Pier and chose to land on water instead.

The Fire Department said: "The plane came to rest mostly submerged in an upright position. Surviving on a small pocket of air in the back of the aircraft’s cabin, Finkelstein was guided by rescuers feet-first, under the water and out through the windshield."

The department added that it took less than half-a-minute for crews to drag him from the wrecked plane.

Footage shows Finkelstein being hauled out of the front window before he was taken to shore on a water rescue raft. He managed to survive with nothing more than a wound on his leg, for which he received hospital treatment.

"Members of the Oak Island Beach Safety Unit, as well as the Southport Fire Department and Oak Island Water Rescue were already in the area, having just responded to a water rescue call nearby," the release said.

"Within minutes of his landing in the water, units from multiple agencies were at the plane, and able to swiftly recover Mr. Finkelstein, transporting him back to shore."

"I wasn’t focused on what I was going to do as a result of the crash, I was focused on the training and what I felt I needed to do," Finkelstein said.

"You know, get the door open before I landed, that sort of thing. I just focused on what I needed to do and wasn’t thinking further ahead than that."