The plane may not fly too well, but it's got a parachute!

Nick Kirkpatrick of the Washington Post writes:

The U.S. Coast Guard captured dramatic footage on Sunday showing the a pilot of a small airplane deploying the aircraft’s parachute system before nose-diving and splashing down to the water.

The Cirrus SR22 plane, which was being delivered to Australia by an aircraft delivery company, was traveling from California to Maui when, halfway through his flight, pilot Lue Morton told the Coast Guard he was having trouble accessing an auxiliary fuel tank and that his fuel was dwindling, the Associated Press reported.

He planned to ditch the aircraft, Coast Guard Lt. Scott Carr told ABC: “He was low on fuel, felt like he had about three hours of fuel left and was probably about 900 miles away from dry land and that he would have to ditch about 230 miles northeast of Maui.”

Luckily, he was flying one of the only types of small planes that comes equipped with an aircraft parachute system to help in such situations.

With a Coast Guard plane tracking him and recording video, he deployed the chute near a cruise ship, Carr told ABC: “His engine just sort of quit. He starts gliding and at 5,000 feet he deployed his parachute, and took the ride down to the ocean.”