Five people died in a small plane crash in Texas late Thursday night, officials said.
They were: Seren Wilson, Brooke Skypala, Stacy Hedrick, Glen Appling and Hayden Dillard. The Amarillo Pickleball Club identified the plane crash victims on social media on Friday.
The plane they were aboard, a Cessna 421C, crashed near the city of Wimberley, Ruben Becerra, the Hays County judge, said on social media.
The victims were traveling from Amarillo, which is 500 miles northwest of Wimberley, to a pickleball tournament in Austin, which is about 38 miles north of the crash site.
The club did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday afternoon.
Emergency personnel responded to the crash around 11 p.m. local time, Mr. Becerra said.
The National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement on Friday that it had opened an investigation.
Mr. Becerra, the top elected official in Hays County, said in his statement that “preliminary information indicates the aircraft was traveling at a high rate of speed at the time of impact.”
The statement noted that there were no signs of a midair collision, adding that a second aircraft that had been traveling in the area landed safely in New Braunfels, a city near San Antonio.
The plane caught fire after it crashed and had “pretty severe damage,” but some portions remained intact, Sgt. Billy Ray, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Safety, said during a news conference on Friday.
The N.T.S.B. said a “post-impact fire destroyed the aircraft.”
The pilot and four passengers were pronounced dead at the scene, Sergeant Ray said.