Transcript for Harrison Ford Injured in California Small Plane Crash
He played characters like Indiana Jones and Han solo. But today Harrison Ford, the action hero, had his own real-life and very dangerous adventure, or perhaps more accurately, misadventure. He crash landed his plane in the middle of a golf course in los Angeles. ABC's Brandi Hitt is on the scene tonight. Reporter: Good evening. You can see the wreckage behind me. Harrison Ford's crumpled plane where it made that crash landing on the golf course. The nose destroyed. Emergency crews saying they're surprised the actor survived this crash. Tonight he's in fair condition. The pilot of this downed plane, movie icon Harrison Ford. Pulled from the wreckage of his world war ii-era plane alert and consciousafter crash landing in a golf course in southern California. At approximately 2:20 P.M. The Los Angeles fire department received a 911 call of a plane that impacted at pen mature golf course. Reporter: Ford's son tweeting at the hospital, dad is okay, battered but okay. He's every bit the man you would think he is. He's an incredibly strong man. Not far from the image in the movies. The larger than life character hot make a habit of death-defying feats of flight like in "Indiana Jones." You know how to fly, don't you? No. Do you? Reporter: "Six days, seven nights." And Han solo flying "The millennium falcon" in star wars. The possibility of successfully navigating is approximately -- Never tell me the odds. Reporter: Today the 72-year-old actor piloting a vintage world war two-era plane with stars on its wings. His trip beginning at Santa Monica airport. Less than two miles from the airport, something goes terribly wrong with the engine. Immediate return. Reporter: Ford radios in for help. Air traffic control clearing a runway. Clear to land. Reporter: He tries to turn back to return to the runway. But the plane can't make it. It looks like it was short of the runway. He's gliding in! Reporter: Look closely, this is the plane. A nearby resident capturing on cell phone the plane in descent. Oh, no! Reporter: Disappearing behind the horizon, the plane crashes near the tee of the 8th hole at the pen mature golf course. Elaine miller saw it happen. I'm assuming there was no engine power. Since he appeared to be gliding in with no noise. And we watched as he slowly went down onto the tee box of the hole where we were, about 100 yards away. Reporter: She ran to the site. We got to the plane. There was one man in there. Somebody then said at that point, "It's Harrison Ford." I don't think anybody had any idea, or cared, before that. The goal was just, get him out of the plane, get him safe, and hope that he's okay. Reporter: Fire department and emergency responders were on the scene shortly after. They found a single-engine plane aircraft that had had a medium to high impact on the ground with one male victim, approximately 70 years old, who at the time was conscious and breathing. Reporter: Paramedics secured him to a gurney and then rushed Ford to the hospital. The pilot reported a loss of engine power and was attempting to return to the runway. It appears that he clipped the top of a tree and came to rest on the golf course. Reporter: Amazingly, this isn't the first time Ford has crash landed. A helicopter he was in went down in 1999. And the next year he crash landed a plane in Nebraska. But Ford has been landing planes safely for the nearly 20 years he's been flying, telling TMZ about it. What's oneng Thi to know about flying a plane? Have a good landing. Reporter: Perhaps the title of his documentary "Just another pilot" says more about the way he sees himself, a guy who simply loves to fly. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon. Reporter: A passion he shared with Barbara Walters in a 2008 interview. You fly. You have planes, you fly on planes, still. What does flying give you? Oh, man. A lot. I love the freedom of flight. I love the places you go. I love the people in aviation. The people that I meet in aviation. I love seeing the world from an airplane. I'm in love with flying. Reporter: The plane he flew today was a 1942 Ryan pt-22, an antique manufactured the very same year Ford was born. To fly these really old airplanes is fairly dangerous. And you take on a level of risk. Reporter: Risks pilots are trained to deal with. It sounds like he did a good job getting the airplane pointed back towards Santa Monica. But he just didn't have enough altitude to glide all the way to the airport. And so he had these fairways in front of him. He did his best to keep the airplane flying, didn't stall it out, and so it looks like he did a really good job under the circumstances. Reporter: Ford is spending tonight at ucla Ronald Reagan medical center. And according to his publicist is expected to make a full recovery. No word yet on whether he'll return to the cockpit. For "Nightline," I'm Brandi Hitt in Los Angeles.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
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