Waylon Dan Boatright, 38, Angel Brooke Wade, 20, Drayden Ashley Sears, 24, Logan Tomberlin, 23, and Ethan Tyree Hampton, 23, dead in plane crash east of Alma, Georgia

The Bacon County Sheriff's Office is investigating after a plane crashed in a remote area of East Bacon County on Wednesday.  According to officials, the plane took off at 2 a.m. on Wednesday, and from there no other contact has been made. Officials said there was no flight plan and family members haven’t heard from the occupants. Officials on scene said there are four or five fatalities. 

Bacon County Sheriff Richard R. Foskey said the plane was found about 4:30 p.m. in a wooded area off Georgia 32 in the Rockingham community. Foskey said a deputy sheriff had received a call that the plane had taken off from the Bacon County Airport west of Alma just after 3 a.m. At least four people were killed Wednesday when a single engine plane crashed in woods 3 1/2 miles east of Alma, official said. "It just disintegrated,'' Foskey said of the plane, and recovery workers were removing the bodies as night fell. A source told the Times-Union that there were four men and a woman on the plane, but Foskey said he could confirm only four people.

Four men and a woman were killed Wednesday when a single-engine plane crashed in woods 3'€Š1/2 miles east of Alma, officials said. Bacon County Sheriff Richard R. Foskey said the plane was found about 4:30 p.m. in a wooded area off Georgia 32 in the Rockingham community. '€œIt just disintegrated,'€ Foskey said of the plane, and recovery workers were removing the bodies as night fell. Foskey had said earlier that at least four were aboard the plane, but Bacon County Coroner Vic Peacock said about 9 p.m. that as the recovery was underway a fifth body was found. A website for Van'€™s Aircraft Inc. of Aurora, Ore., said its RV-10 is a single-engine kit plane with seating for four adults. Foskey said a deputy sheriff had received a call that the plane had taken off from the Bacon County Airport west of Alma just after 3 a.m. '€œIt wasn'€™t long after that that they crashed,'€ he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the plane — a single-engine RV-10 — crashed Wednesday about 4 miles from the small local airport. The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating. Peacock said authorities believe the plane went down shortly after takeoff Wednesday morning, more than 12 hours before the wreckage was found. Names of those killed were not immediately released. The coroner said all of them were local residents.

Five people aboard a single-engine plane died when the aircraft crashed in rural southeast Georgia, scattering debris across a wooded area a few miles from the local airport, authorities said Thursday. Authorities believe the plane went down shortly after taking off from the local airport Wednesday between 2:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., Peacock said. "There's wreckage everywhere in this small area. Peacock confirmed four men and a woman were killed in the crash a few miles outside Alma, a rural city about 100 miles southwest of Savannah.

The victims of the plane crash in East Bacon County have been identified. Boatright's wife reported the plane and her husband had been missing since Tuesday, and that is when law enforcement began their search and eventually discovered the downed plane. According to a preliminary investigation, the kit plane had four seats and had five passengers. Three of the passengers were classmates, graduating in the same high school class. A vigil has been planned.  

The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane, a single-engine RV-10, crashed Wednesday about 4 miles east of the small Bacon County Airport. Authorities believe the plane went down shortly after taking off from the local airport Wednesday between 2:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., Peacock said. It just disintegrated, basically.'€ Peacock confirmed four men and a woman were killed in the crash a few miles outside Alma, a rural city about 100 miles southwest of Savannah. The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating the cause of the crash. His office said he was still at the crash site.

FAA and NTSB investigators have begun their investigation into a deadly plane crash near Alma in Bacon County. The plane went down early Wednesday morning in a remote, wooded area near Highway 32 and Mesquite Road near the Rockingham community. According to a preliminary investigation, the kit plane had four seats and had five passengers. The pilot's wife reported the plane and her husband had been missing since Tuesday, and that is when law enforcement began their search and eventually discovered the downed plane. WTOC will continue to follow the latest developments in the investigation and update this story with any new details.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane, a single-engine RV-10, crashed Wednesday about 4 miles east of the small Bacon County Airport. "There's wreckage everywhere in this small area. Authorities believe the plane went down shortly after taking off from the local airport Wednesday between 2:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., Peacock said. SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) '€” Five people aboard a single-engine plane died when the aircraft crashed in rural southeast Georgia, scattering debris across a wooded area a few miles from the local airport, authorities said Thursday. Peacock confirmed four men and a woman were killed in the crash a few miles outside Alma, a rural city about 100 miles southwest of Savannah.

The five people who died Wednesday in the crash of a single-engine plane in woods east of Alma were all local residents and all but the owner of the plane were in their early 20s, the Bacon County coroner said. Bacon County Coroner Vic Peacock identified the crash victims as Waylon Dan Boatright, 38, the owner of the plane, Logan Tomberlin, 23, Ethan Hampton, 23, Dayden Sears, 24, and Angel Wade, 20, all of Alma. A search was undertaken for the plane and it was spotted about 4:30 by those aboard a Georgia Forestry Commission aircraft, Foskey said Wednesday night. The RV10 was an experimental kit aircraft and he was certified to work on the plane. Bacon County Sheriff Richard Foskey said Thursday the National Transportation Safety Board was at the crash scene, but the plane would likely not be removed from the woods where it crashed until Friday. '€œIt'€™s mostly all contained.

South Georgia State College is a close community where the loss of a student impacts the entire college family, the release said. South Georgia State College provided counseling services Monday at its Waycross and Douglas campuses because of the death of a student who was among five killed in a plane crash Wednesday near Alma. Angel B. Wade, 20, was a freshman majoring in pre-nursing, the college said in a release. Wade was one of four passengers aboard a single-engine, four-seat plane that crashed around 3 a.m. The presumed pilot and the owner of the plane, 38-year-old Waylon Dan Boatright, had only a student pilot'€™s certificate under which he was not allowed to be in command of a plane with passengers, FAA records and regulations show.

The FAA said it did not issue a student pilot certificate on Jan. 19, 2011, the date it issued Boatright a medical certificate, because of an administrative oversight. Had the FAA issued such a license on that date, it would already have expired at the time of the crash, the NTSB report says. FAA regulations state, however, that student pilots cannot be in command The NTSB report said that at the time of the crash, Boatright did not hold a valid pilot certificate and no pilot log was recovered. The owner and pilot of a small plane that crashed near Alma last week killing him and four others did not have a valid pilot'€™s license, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report. The Times-Union learned last week from FAA records that the agency had issued Boatright a certificate on Dec. 19, 2010, as a repairman and builder of his RV-10.

Pilot in Bacon Co. plane crash not cleared to fly, says report Posted: Updated: Federal investigators say the pilot who was driving the plane that crashed in Bacon County - did not have a license. A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board does not specify a probable cause for the crash. The report says Boatright had been certified in 2010 to build and repair the single-engine plane, but he did not have his pilot'€™s license. It does, however, identify Waylon Boatright as the plane'€™s owner and pilot. The NTSB says the plane smashed into trees about 50 feet above the ground.