3 killed in small plane crash in Louisiana

LIVINGSTON, La., Feb. 28 (UPI) -- A small plane crashed in southeastern Louisiana, killing a Mississippi couple and their son, investigators said Saturday.

The Cessna 182 went down in dense woods shortly before midnight Friday, Perry Rushing of the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office said. Several residents of the area called police, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported.

The dead were identified as Glyn Ray Johnson, 39, Tabitha Dolbare, 39, and Nelson Dolbare, 12, all of Gautier, Miss.

Jason Ard, also of the sheriff's office, said searchers using a helicopter spent two hours looking for the plane before locating the wreckage and directing emergency crews to it.

"It's a pretty gruesome scene right now. It's debris spread, could be over five-hundred yards or more, pretty spread out right now and it could be a lot more than that," Ard told WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge.

The crash occurred not long after the Cessna took off from the Slidell airport en route to Marksville, La., Ard said. The pilot did not have to file a flight plan or even notify the airport of departure.

Friends said Johnson and Dolbare, who had split up, reunited last year. They were planning to visit friends in Marksville.

"It wasn't unusual for Glyn to just get in his airplane and fly around," Debbie Gill, a neighbor in Gautier, told the Times-Picayune. "He just loves to fly, loves airplanes and actually, he was building an airplane."