As he does at his paying job, Acker cut branches on his way up the tree until he was about 20 feet from the top.
He then secured the plane to the tree with rope webbing, and secured Gregory in a safety line before the pilot was safely belayed back to the ground, according to KIVI.
“I’ve never seen anything like this happen,” Acker told the AP
The lone tree supported most of the plane’s weight. “Those wings were perfectly centered over the top of the tree,” McCall Fire Capt. Brandon Swain told the AP.
And most of it was intact, with just a piece of the propeller and a wheel falling to the ground.
As of Thursday afternoon, the plane remained in the tree while officials tried to figure out a way to get it safely down, according to the AP.