Plane crash in Wimberley, Texas kills 5 pickleball players at tournament
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A plane carrying a football team to a tournament over Texas tragically crashed on Thursday, killing all five people on board.
The victims’ names were not immediately released by authorities, but the Amarillo Pickleball Club in Amarillo, Texas, said they were members flying to a tournament. The plane crashed at 11 p.m. Thursday in the city of Wimberley, 40 miles southwest of Austin.
“The pilot and four passengers on board were pronounced dead at the scene,” local police sergeant Billy Ray told reporters. he said.
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Ray said federal authorities are handling the investigation.
Dan Dyer, president of the Amarillo Pickleball Club, said he played many games with four of the five people who died.
“I gave them medals. They were excellent players. They went out to win some matches,” Dyer said. “There are dozens of tournaments every weekend. Some people get the bug, others don’t. But once they get it, they’ll travel for a tournament.”
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Dyer said a second plane also arrived at the event from Amarillo at the same time. Officials said the plane landed safely at the airport in New Braunfels, about 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 moving erratically and now his track has disappeared from view. So we want to make sure everything is okay for him.”
At least one pilot in the area confirmed that the troubled plane’s locator emergency device was emitting a distress signal. The controller called 911.
The National Weather Service said skies were mostly cloudy in the New Braunfels area shortly before the crash, and the storm hit two hours later.
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Wimberley, with a population of about 3,000, and New Braunfels, with a population of about 116,000, are tourist attractions in the Texas Hill Country.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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