Mom: Boy didn't steal plane in crash

photo National Transportation Safety Board officials continue to investigate at the scene of a fatal crash Tuesday night of a small plane that was reported stolen near Jasper, Ala., Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. Walker County sheriff's Chief Deputy James Painter says authorities are still investigating but believe the teenagers took the plane without permission before it crashed Tuesday night.

JASPER, Ala. - The mother of a teen killed along with two friends in an Alabama plane crash says her son had his own key to the plane and had flown it many times.

Sherrie Smith says her 17-year-old son Jordan Smith was the one flying the plane that crashed in the Alabama woods. She says two other male teen friends also died in the crash.

Authorities have said they believed the plane was taken on a joy ride without the owner's permission.

But Smith says the owner of the plane had let him fly it many other times and had given her son his own key.

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