Two young pilots who were at the controls of a light aircraft which was forced to make an emergency landing in Queensland have been praised for their calm actions.

Aviation authorities are investigating the cause of the crash which happened at Victoria Point, south east of Brisbane, two weeks ago.

Footage taken from inside the cockpit captured events as the Jabiru J-170 light plane lost power.

Within minutes the plane crash landed, narrowly avoiding a pump house and ending up in a barbed wire fence.

Josh Matica, 18, was at the controls on what was his first training flight with perfect conditions.

When the engine started to surge, his 22-year-old instructor, Doug Field, took over but he was unable to get the power back and they began gliding.

Recalling the events, Mr Field said: "We're at 1,100 feet, we've got about a bit under two minutes before we're going to hit the ground at this point in time."

Realising they were not going to make it back to the airfield, they made an emergency call to the tower and Mr Field began looking for a place to land.

Mr Field, who does work with the Wings of Life charity which raises money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, said: "I'm having a bit of a look around, you can see there weren't too many good options there."

The plane came down in what has been described as a textbook emergency landing.

The company that owns the aircraft, Pathfinder Aviation, released a statement praising the student and instructor for a "textbook execution of the forced landing procedure".

Meanwhile airline pilot Captain Michael Greig said: "Those are the sort of guys you want sitting next to you in the seat when something does go wrong because you know how they're going to react – they’re going to be calm, methodical and do the job at hand at the time."

The findings of a report into the crash landing are expected to be released in a couple of months.