"A beautiful flight up."
That's how John Murphy described the flight with his adult son Josiah and daughter departing from Martin State Airport in Maryland en route to Southern Vermont.
The plan was to take their skis and hit the slopes at the Killington Resort, but the Murphy family was later met with disaster.
Their plane crashed in the Equinox Mountain, leaving all three onboard with injuries.
John told reporters that when they got to a certain point in Vermont, it seemed like the clouds just engulfed them.
"I have no experience in the clouds," John said, "And the plane very quickly gained icing. We've seen it on the windshield. We've seen it on the wings."
When the plane got to 5500 feet, John tried to move more west since it was clearer, but he realized that was a bad decision.
He said that led the plane more to the mountain, and the plane would no longer gain altitude.
His son began to yell that the plane was stalling, so he attempted a stall recovery, trying to level out at 106 miles an hour.
The plane stalled multiple times, and once the final stall came, John knew the plane was going to crash.
"Luckily, you know, we went right between two trees. It ripped the wings off. We pitched down a little bit, kind of heading into the mountain, but we hit some smaller trees that kind of acted like a ramp, and we had at least four or five feet of snow up there that kind of made like a little, you know, little, kind of a swoosh," said John.
Family recalls moments before plane crashes in mountains in Vermont
Josiah told reporters that he thought that he and his family were going to die as the plane was going down.
"The grand likelihood was we were going to die. Obviously, we didn't. We were extremely blessed. But anybody in that situation that has any experience at all looking at the site picture we were would be certain that they were taking their last looks at the earth and everything around them," Josiah said.
Authorities say the plane crashed around 8:33 am.
All three members of the Murphy family were able to exit the plane and John called 911 to report the crash.
He said he had some stitches and a broken bone, his son Josiah had some stitches, and his daughter was unharmed, but they all had a little whiplash.
John commended the first responders for how quickly they got to the scene and for the care they gave him and his family. He also thanked the community.
"The thing I came up here for was to say thank you to these guys, and that, you know, all they did for my family. It was amazing, you know, all with the best spirits and professionalism. It was like clockwork," said John.
John said he was offered by the FAA to speak at webinars discussing safer skies, going around to different airports, and talking to people about this experience.
He said a representative told him he was in a unique position to give a personal story.
At this time, the crash remains under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
