Samantha Clemens / The Spectrum

Emergency officials respond to a fatal plane crash near the St. George Municipal Airport on Saturday.

Security video captured a small plane taking off from a southern Utah airport just before it crashed about 300 yards from the runway, killing all four men aboard, a federal investigator said Sunday.

Zoe Keliher of the National Transportation Safety Board said the video shows the single-engine Cessna 172 flying at a low level early Saturday morning at St. George Municipal Airport.

"The airplane continued down the runway and made a rapid ascent," Keli­her told the Salt Lake Tribune. "Shortly after that, you see a descent of a few flickers of light but not the plane."

She added that it's too early to say whether the airport's camera video will offer clues into the cause of the crash.

Marc Mortensen, assistant to the St. George city manager, said officials believe the four men aboard the plane were killed upon impact. The wreckage wasn't discovered until more than four hours later because the airport is not staffed at night, he added.

The victims were identified Sunday as Colby Hafen, 28, and Christopher Chapman, 20, both of Santa Clara; Tanner Holt, 23, of Washington City; and Alexander Metzger, 22, of St. George.

Keliher and Mortensen said they were unsure where the plane was headed at the time. Keliher said only one of the four men had a pilot's license, but neither she nor Mortensen would identify the plane's pilot.

Holt's friend, Paul Hogue, told the Deseret News that Holt was a trained pilot who had flown commercially.

"The future can be taken from you so quickly and they had so much for their future," Hogue said. "They had future families and future wives and kids."

According to Federal Aviation Administration records, the Cessna 172 was built in 1999 and owned by Diamond Flying LLC of St. George.

Keliher said a cursory check of the plane's maintenance records turned up no major problems. She and representatives of Cessna and the company that built its engine inspected the aircraft after it was moved Sunday to a nearby hangar, she said.

Trio rescued more than 15 hours after Idaho plane crash

It will take months for her agency to examine the plane and pilot, and issue a final report, she said. The NTSB will issue a preliminary report on the crash in five days.

"I'm now trying to get ahold of family members (of the four), and will finish the inspection of the aircraft Monday," Keliher said Sunday evening. "I hope to wrap up the on-scene investigation and leave Tuesday."

'Wonderful son'
According to the National Weather Service, there were no severe weather conditions at the airport during the early on Saturday.

The airport, which has been in operation at its current site for about 1 1/2 years, does not have a control tower. Pilots use an automated system to communicate with one another when landing or taking off.

Hafen's family issued a statement describing him as a "wonderful son, brother and uncle" who loved to travel and who served a Mormon church mission to Oregon. He worked in the insurance business with his father.

"The community is grieving together," Mortensen told the AP. "St. George is a tight-knit community, and some of the families involved have been in the area over 100 years. If you live in this area, you know someone who knows one of these men."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Kenny Hoagland / AP

This photo provided by the Owyhee County Sheriff's office shows the site where a small plane crashed in southwest Idaho on Sunday.

Updated at 1 a.m. ET: BOISE, Idaho -- Idaho National Guard rescuers plucked a California fireman, his wife and their adult daughter from a snow-covered mountainside Sunday afternoon, more than 15 hours after the trio survived a nighttime plane crash onto a steep, forested slope in a remote part of the state.

Authorities said the group was flying in a Cessna 172 from California to Mountain Home, Idaho, when the plane went down at about 9 p.m. MDT Saturday (11 p.m. ET). One of the three used a cellphone just after midnight to report that they had survived the crash but had suffered head and back injuries.

A medical helicopter was the first to spot the wreckage Sunday morning, but white-out conditions didn't allow for an immediate rescue, said Col. Tim Marsano of the Idaho National Guard.

Officials said ground rescuers traveling through 6-foot snow drifts and on 60-degree slopes reached the crash site first. They wrapped the family members in blankets and built a fire until a military helicopter could lift them out with a hoist.

"It was inhospitable for a landing," Marsano said. "The use of the helicopter was indispensable for this type of rescue operation."

Kenny Hoagland / AP

Ground rescuers traveled through 6-foot snow drifts to reach the crash site.

The three were flown one at a time to a landing area about a half-mile from War Eagle Mountain in southwest Idaho's Owyhee County.

The first person came out about noon and the last at about 2 p.m., and each was transferred to a medical helicopter and flown to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise where they were listed in stable condition.

It's unclear what caused the Cessna to go down. Photos taken by rescuers showed significant damage, including a broken front windshield.

Authorities identified the trio as Brian Brown of Wilton, Calif., his wife Jayann Brown and their 26-year-old daughter Heather, the Idaho Statesman reported.

'Surprisingly good condition'
Brian Brown is a captain at the Cosumnes Community Services District Fire Department in Elk Grove, Calif. He is also deputy chief of operation and training with the nearby volunteer Wilton Fire Protection District.

Owyhee County Sheriff Daryl Crandall told KTVB that the three relatives were "surprisingly good condition."

Wilton Fire Chief Tom Dark said the couple was flying with their youngest daughter to Mountain Home to visit their oldest daughter. He was relieved they were in stable condition.

"That was our first concern, how he and the family were doing," said Dark. "Knowing what a good pilot he is, something had to have happened."

Dark said it was probably an unusual experience for Brown, a firefighter for more than two decades, to be on the other end of a rescue.

"When the shoe is on the other foot it's kind of strange," he said.

The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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