Two men killed in a plane crash in Granbury last week have been identified, officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety say.
The men, identified as 40-year-old pilot Casey Bussett, of Yukon, Oklahoma, and 35-year-old Chad Hughes, a mechanic from Dublin, Georgia, were taking off from Granbury Regional Airport in the amateur-built 1987 Buzby Mustang II when witnesses said they heard a funny noise and saw the plane bank very hard toward the ground.
Multiple witnesses told NBC 5 they distinctly saw something wrong with the plane's wing.
The plane slammed into the ground and burst into flames, in full view of spectators at a crowded high school football stadium adjacent to the airport. Several football coaches from both squads ran toward the nearby runway to see if they could save those on board, but the fire was too intense.
"You see the plane take off, and almost immediately we heard like a weird noise, that you knew something was wrong. And one of the other coaches said, 'Look at that!" And we looked up and you could it just drop straight down," said Jordon Sweatt, a coach for the varsity team who was observing the freshman play Thursday night.
"Your heart just immediately sinks. Because you know from the angle it went down, the chances of something positive coming out of it were pretty slim," he added.
Bussett and Hughes' names were not immediately available pending identification and notification of next-of-kin.
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The investigation into the crash by the National Transportation Safety Board is ongoing.
NBC 5's Jeff Smith contributed to this report.
