3 men and 1 woman are dead in a small jet crash in Georgia, officials says

The bodies of three men and one woman were recovered Sunday from the scene of a small plane crash in Georgia, according to Gordon County Deputy Coroner Christy Nicholson.

The plane took off from Peachtree City on Saturday just after 9 a.m. bound for Nashville, Heidi Kemner, a National Transportation Safety Board aviation accident investigator, said.

The small jet was located early Saturday afternoon, Kemner said Sunday, “inverted in a creek.”

Authorities are waiting to identify the victims pending confirmation by the George Bureau of Investigation’s Crime Lab, Nicholson said.

The NTSB is investigating the crash, including the possibility weather was a factor.

FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen previously told CNN a Cessna 501 departed Atlanta Regional Airport-Falcon Field in Peachtree City before disappearing around 50 miles north of Atlanta.

One resident, Danny Hyde, told CNN affiliate WSB-TV it was “snowing pretty hard” Saturday morning while he was cooking breakfast.

“And I hear this boom,” Hyde said. “I said, ‘Man, that sounded like thunder.'”

Local landowners discovered the wreckage in a remote area of the county, about 3 miles off a road, Gordon County Sheriff Mitch Ralston said Saturday afternoon.

“You cannot drive a vehicle into where the aircraft is located,” Ralston said. “We had to use ATVs and walk in on foot.”