A pilot is being praised for saving his passenger and himself from serious injury during a light plane accident in Northland.
Emergency services were called to Pouto Road — south of Dargaville — about 10.30am, after a two-seater aircraft crash-landed in a paddock there.
Two men have escaped with minor cuts and bruises and have been taken to the local hospital for a check-up.
Dargaville Volunteer Fire Station chief fire officer Jeffrey Palmer says a perfect landing meant the men escaped relatively unscathed.
He says if the pilot had gone a couple of hundred metres further he would've landed in a flat paddock but he just happened to hit a hilly paddock, then a fence post.
Palmer says the pilot thought he had a fuel problem and tried to get back to Dargaville Airport but didn't manage to.
Firefighters are at the scene ensuring the extensively damaged aircraft, which is leaking fuel, is safe.
The Civil Aviation Authority has been notified and will investigate the incident.