Texas businessmen killed in plane that crashed after leaving Columbia, coroner says
The three men who were killed in a plane that crashed in Georgia after taking off from Columbia Metropolitan Airport Tuesday have been identified.
The pilot and passengers on board the small plane were businessmen from Texas, Oconee County Coroner Ed Carson told The State Wednesday.
Carson said his office is still working on positively identifying all three, and is using dental records to help the process.
Without publicly releasing their names, the coroner’s office confirmed the men were from Texas. They were in Columbia looking at a potential real estate development, Carson said.
“Our hearts go out to the families of those involved. Each family was extremely gracious and understanding of the situation at hand,” the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook.
The crash is being investigated by Federal Aviation Administration, and their officials are on the scene, according to the sheriff’s office.
The crash happened around 4:30 p.m. in a heavily wooded area, according to the sheriff’s office. Oconee County is about 170 miles west of Columbia, just outside of Athens.
Officials found the small plane engulfed in flames. Local emergency personnel attempted to rescue passengers but were unable to because of the fire and damage to the aircraft, according to the sheriff’s office.
Other than the three occupants of the plane, no injuries were reported in the crash, as the sheriff’s office said no one on the ground was hurt.
Kim Jamieson, a spokesperson for Columbia Metropolitan Airport, confirmed the plane took off from the Columbia airport around 3 or 3:15 p.m., about an hour and a half before the crash.
The plane’s intended destination was Tuscaloosa National Airport in Alabama, Carson said.
The plane was a Piper PA-46, a propeller-nosed, single-engine aircraft that can carry up to five passengers and a pilot, Atlanta TV news station 11 Alive reported.
One witness who lives in the area, Andrew Brislin, said the plane was “going around, spinning around in a circle,” CBS46 reported.
Law enforcement said they were not immediately aware of any calls for distress, but the investigation is ongoing.
Information on what caused the plane to crash was not immediately available, but the sheriff’s office was not ruling out a weather-related issue.
“I don’t know (if weather was a factor), I don’t want to speculate as to what the cause of the plane coming down was. But we have had some significant weather in the county this afternoon,” sheriff’s office spokesman Capt. James Hale said during the news briefing.
This is a developing story, check back for updates.
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This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 10:50 AM.
