Ford: Action Star Is No Stranger To Danger

As Han Solo, Indiana Jones and other larger-than-life characters, Harrison Ford has spent his distinguished career as one of Hollywood's leading men thrilling audiences.

And like his on-screen daredevil antics, Ford has run into several real-life dramas while pursuing his love of aviation, fast driving and the unpredictability of filmmaking.

The actor's plane crash on a golf course in Los Angeles is just one of several close brushes that he has experienced.

The scar on his chin was earned in 1964 in "a mundane way", he has said.

He was speeding to a job at a department store in Orange County, California, when his car careered off the road and into a telephone pole as he tried to grab his seat belt.

In 1999, Ford crash-landed his helicopter during a training flight in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles.

Ford and the instructor were unhurt.

He used his helicopter in 2000 to rescue a hiker off 11,106ft Table Mountain in Teton County, Wyoming, and fly her to a hospital.

One year later, Ford and another searcher helped find a missing boy scout in a forest south of Yellowstone National Park.

"Boy, you sure must have earned a merit badge for this one," Ford told the cold and hungry teenager after whisking him to safety by chopper.

Ford was at the helm of a Beechcraft Bonanza in 2000 when a powerful gust of wind forced him to make an emergency landing at Lincoln Municipal Airport in Nebraska.

Ford and his passenger were uninjured when the plane clipped the runway and its wing tips were damaged, officials said.

Last year, he was filming Star Wars: Episode VII in a studio outside London when a door of Han Solo's Millennium Falcon spacecraft fell and broke the actor's leg, requiring surgery on it.

Production on the movie was halted for two weeks as he recovered.