{"id":23762,"date":"2026-05-03T01:21:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T01:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/23762\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T01:21:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T01:21:19","slug":"five-pickleball-players-killed-in-horrific-texas-plane-crash-on-way-to-tournament-idd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/23762\/","title":{"rendered":"Five pickleball players killed in horrific Texas plane crash on way to tournament ID’d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0five people\u00a0killed in a fiery\u00a0Texas plane crash on their way<\/a>\u00a0to a pickleball tournament have been\u00a0identified.<\/p>\n

Amarillo Pickleball Club members Seren Wilson, 19;\u00a0Brooke Skypala, 45; Stacy Hedrick, 51; Justin \u201cGlen\u201d Appling, 37; and Hayden Dillard, 39, died in the wreck Thursday night, the organization announced\u00a0on Facebook Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, the Club has received terrible news that we all must mourn in the loss of five members of our Amarillo pickleball family,\u201d the club wrote.<\/p>\n

The small plane crashed on Thursday night on its way to the tournament. AP<\/p>\n

Fellow athletes and loved ones\u00a0offered an outpouring of support and grief for the doomed players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were the greatest people I\u2019ve ever met! Every tournament I was at they were also there and they were a hoot,\u201d one man wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis breaks my heart. Praying for the family, friends and all the pickleball community. May the Lord be their comfort in their time of need,\u201d\u00a0another commenter added.<\/p>\n

Wilson, the youngest victim, was honored in a heartfelt tribute from her high\u00a0school\u00a0tennis team.<\/p>\n

Seren Wilson, 19, was the youngest of the victims. Tascosa Rebel Tennis<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are heartbroken to hear the terrible news of the loss of Amarillo High School graduate and Sandie Tennis alumni, Seren Wilson,\u201d Amarillo High School\u2019s\u00a0tennis team wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeren loved big and her presence, encouragement, and spirit will be deeply missed by so many.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investigators are still determining what caused the crash. AP<\/p>\n

Skypala was a mental health counselor and a mother of three, according to LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.<\/p>\n

Appling was a sales manager,\u00a0while\u00a0Dillard worked in real estate and leaves behind a daughter, their social media profiles show.<\/p>\n

The twin-engine Cessna 421C was one of two small planes traveling from Amarillo to New Braunfels for the tournament when it crashed\u00a0in a fireball just after 11 p.m. on Thursday,\u00a0authorities said.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The aircraft plunged into a wooded area in Wimberly, about 40 miles southwest of Austin.<\/p>\n

Flight tracking data show the plane took a sudden, sharp turn before plummeting from 13,600 feet to 7,000 feet \u2014 then stopped transmitting data entirely, the Austin American-Statesman reported.<\/p>\n

The other plane arrived safely at New Braunfels National Airport.<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board continue to investigate the crash.<\/p>\n

The FAA and the NTSB did not provide any additional information when reached for comment\u00a0Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0five people\u00a0killed in a fiery\u00a0Texas plane crash on their way\u00a0to a pickleball tournament have been\u00a0identified. Amarillo Pickleball Club…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14603,3848,8,9,14604,3714,360,7,1250],"class_list":{"0":"post-23762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-airplanes","9":"tag-faa","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-ntsb","13":"tag-plane-crashes","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-us-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116508025523389100","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}