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A plane was traveling over Texas on Thursday, carrying a pickleball team to a tournament, before tragically crashing, killing all five people on board.
Names of the victims were not immediately released by authorities, though the Amarillo Pickleball Club in Amarillo, Texas, said they were members who were flying to a tournament. The plane crashed in Wimberley, a city 40 miles southwest of Austin, at 11 p.m. Thursday.
“The pilot and four passengers on board were pronounced deceased on scene,” local police sergeant Billy Ray told reporters.
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Ray said federal authorities were leading the investigation.
Dan Dyer, president of the Amarillo Pickleball Club, said he’d played many games with four of the five people who died.
“I’ve handed them medals. They were excellent players. They were out to win some games,” Dyer said. “Every weekend there are dozens of tournaments. Some people get the bug; others don’t. But once they do, they’ll travel for a tournament.”
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Dyer said a second plane was traveling to the event from Amarillo at the same time. Authorities said it landed safely at the airport in New Braunfels, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northeast of San Antonio.
“I haven’t heard anything from him,” the pilot of the second plane said, according to air traffic control audio.
A controller responded: “He started to move erratically and now his track is disappeared from the scope. So we want to make sure everything’s all right with him.”
At least one pilot in the area confirmed the troubled plane’s locator emergency device had emitted a distress signal. The controller called 911.
It was mostly cloudy in the New Braunfels area shortly before the crash and there was a thunderstorm two hours later, the National Weather Service said.
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Wimberley, with a population of about 3,000, and New Braunfels, with a population of about 116,000, are tourist destinations in the Texas Hill Country.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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