Three die in Sabine County plane crash

HEMPHILL (AP) - Three people died when their singleengine plane crashed into Toledo Bend Reservoir in Sabine County, officials said.

A police communications operator with the Texas Department of Public Safety said that the three killed in the Tuesday afternoon crash were: Daniel McIntire, 54, of Humble; George McFadden of New York City; and Heather Hardin, 34, of Louisiana.

The DPS operator said that witnesses heard a plane sputtering, but it was obscured by clouds. The plane then broke through the clouds and hit the lake nose first at about 4:10 p.m.

A dispatcher with the Sabine County Sheriff's Office says that the plane went down close to Indian Mounds Recreation Area.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Roland Herwig said that air traffic put out a notice that the aircraft, a Cirrus SR22, was overdue just before 4 p.m. Tuesday. Shortly after that, a local department got a 911 call from a witness saying that a plane went down in the lake.

The plane was en route from Tupelo, Miss., to David Wayne Hooks Airport in Spring, near Houston, Herwig said.

He said that the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will be investigating.

Herwig said that plane is owned by McAir LLC of West Memphis, Ark.

Toledo Bend is on the Texas- Louisiana border.