{"id":276233,"date":"2026-05-02T18:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T18:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/276233\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T18:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T18:19:08","slug":"five-pickleball-players-killed-in-horrific-texas-plane-crash-on-way-to-tournament-idd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/276233\/","title":{"rendered":"Five pickleball players killed in horrific Texas plane crash on way to tournament ID&#8217;d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The identities of the five victims who were killed in a fiery <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/01\/us-news\/small-plane-crash-in-texas-hill-country-kills-all-5-on-board-officials\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">plane crash in Texas on their way<\/a> to a pickleball tournament have been released by the players\u2019 mourning club.<\/p>\n<p>Amarillo Pickleball Club members Seren Wilson, 19, Brooke Skypala, 45, Stacy Hedrick, 51, Justin \u201cGlen\u201d Appling, 37, and Hayden Dillard, 39, died in the wreck Thursday night, the organization announced<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AmarilloPickleball\/posts\/982954987594388?ref=embed_post\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> on Facebook Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\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<p>The small plane crashed on Thursday night on its way to the tournament.  AP<\/p>\n<p>Fellow athletes and loved ones were gutted by the tragic news.<\/p>\n<p>\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<p>\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 another commentor added.<\/p>\n<p>Wilson, the youngest victim, was honored in a heartfelt tribute from her high school\u2019s tennis team.<\/p>\n<p>Seren Wilson, 19, was the youngest of the victims.  Tascosa Rebel Tennis<\/p>\n<p>\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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/p\/1NC4tftnSq\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">tennis team wrote<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSeren loved big and her presence, encouragement, and spirit will be deeply missed by so many.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Investigators are still determining what caused the crash.  AP<\/p>\n<p>Skypala was a mental health counselor and a mother of three, according to LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.<\/p>\n<p>Appling was a sales managers, and Dillard worked in real estate and leaves behind a daughter, their social media profiles show.<\/p>\n<p>The twin-engine Cessna 421C was one of two small planes traveling from Amarillo to New Braunfels for the tournament when it crashed in a fireball just after 11:25 p.m. on Thursday, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\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<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft plunged into a wooded area in Wimberly, about 40 miles southwest of Austin.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>The other plane arrived safely at New Braunfels National Airport.<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board continue to investigate the crash.<\/p>\n<p>The NTSB did not immediately return The Post\u2019s request for comment. The FAA did not provide any additional information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The identities of the five victims who were killed in a fiery plane crash in Texas on their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6421,2399,3335,3003,27,29,28,734],"class_list":["post-276233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-airplanes","tag-faa","tag-ntsb","tag-plane-crashes","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}