A World War II era plane used for giving rides to people crashed near Galveston, Texas, killing the two passengers inside on Wednesday morning, the Associated Press reported.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said the two passengers were pilot Keith Hibbett, 51 of Denton, and 66-year-old John Stephen Busby who was visiting from the United Kingdom, according to the AP.
Busby, who had paid about $2,000 for the flight, was visiting Texas with his wife for their 41st anniversary, The Christian Monitor reported.
The vintage P-51 Mustang aircraft was owned by the Lone Star Flight Museum in Texas and was called the Galveston Gal by museum employees and riders, according to the AP. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said the pilot was not in contact with air traffic controllers when the crash occurred.
The aircraft took off from Scholes International Airport. Shortly after, a captain of a charter fishing boat called the U.S. Coast Guard at 11:40 a.m. on Wednesday and reported seeing a plane go down between Chocolate Bay and Galveston Bay in the Gulf of Mexico, CNN reported.
According to the AP, the U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Steve Lehmann sent a small boat, helicopter, state and local authorities to the crash site where the plane lay in four-foot deep waters.
"This is by far one of the most difficult things I've ever gone through," Larry Gregory, who works at the Lone Star Flight Museum, told KHOU-TV in Houston, Texas. "Our pilot was like a brother to me, he's taught me a lot about flying and everything else. And it's just devastating."
According to the Lone Star Flight Museum's website, the FAA records state the plane was built in 1944. It was converted to a two-seat, dual-control training aircraft while serving in the El Salvadoran Air Force in the 1960s. In recent years, it was painted with the "Galveston Gal" markings and was used to give people a flight experience for about $2,000 a flight.
