A 17-year-old pilot from McKinney died Monday night when his plane crashed in Arkansas.
Gabriel Hatton was flying a single-engine Cessna from Drake Field in Fayetteville to Dallas when he crashed around 8:45 p.m. in a wooded area about 25 miles southwest of Fayetteville.
Nearby residents reported the crash to the Washington County Sheriff's Office after hearing the impact and smelling fuel, KFSM-TV reported.
It took authorities more than two hours to find the wreckage, and they confirmed that Hatton had died at the scene. No one else was aboard the plane.
The McKinney Boyd High School student's father, Clint Hatton, wrote on Facebook that the family was "grieving deeply."
“We need some time to breathe, be with our family, plan a celebration worthy of Gabriel's impact in the world around him, and move towards healing on a new journey that we find ourselves in as a family," he wrote.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.
