UPDATE: A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board says the pilot of the plane was flying from an airport in Auburn, Ala., to somewhere in Tennessee when it crashed Saturday.
According to the Murray County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office, Dexter Lee Gresham filed a flight plan with the McMinn County, Tenn., Airport on June 26, five days before the crash. This was where the owners normally kept the plane, located close to their home in Etowah, Tenn.
A spokesperson for the McMinn County Airport was not sure when specifically the pilot took off last week. The flight plan said they were flying to Mobile, Ala. But a spokesperson for that airport could not immediately find a record of that plane landing or taking off from Mobile.
The plane itself was registered to Mary Jo Yarbrough. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the Piper PA-23 Aztec was built in 1966. Yarbrough registered the twin-engine plane in 2013.
Workers for Lycoming, a Williamsport, Pa., company, made the engine.