All three passengers of the plane survived the crash.

In a mariculous escape, a couple and their two-year-old daughter survived a plane crash after deploying a parachute to slow the small aircraft’s fall. According to New York Post, the family was hovering above a mountainous area when the accident took place. The police found them near the crash site in Whitehorn in California on Friday. The husband and wife, both 38, and their daughter escaped with minor scratches, the outlet further said quoting the police.

The plane, a 2004 Cirrus SR22, took off from Shelter Cove airport and was headed towards Santa Rosa, where the family lives, the police said. But during its journey, it lost power and started descending.

“The pilot began to troubleshoot why the airplane lost engine power, but had noticed the plane’s altitude was too low for recovery,” a Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said in a statement.

He then decided to use the parachute system in the plane to slow down its fall, the sheriff’s office further said.

The parachute was massive and it carried the plane till it finally crashed in a forest.

Speaking to a local outlet, Captain Quincy Cromer from the sheriff’s office said it sounded like it was a “last-ditch effort”.

“Chances of survival without the parachute were slim,” the chief of the local fire department said.

He added that all the family members were out of the plane when emergency crews reached the spot.

The fire department also posted photos of the accident site that show the parachute caught In a tree ne plane destroyed.