East Texas teens find plane wreckage using light from cell phone - WLOX.com - The News for South Mississippi

First responders scrambled to find the crash site of a small plane late Monday night in Cherokee County.

As the rain and lightning continued, more crews from all over the Deep East Texas searched for a downed aircraft from Houston that disappeared from radar.

Teenagers from Wells eventually led authorities to the site after they went looking for the plane in a patch of wooded land near their house.

Wesley Mills said his friends ventured out into the rain after noticing something in the sky. "One of my friends went outside and was like 'the sky's on fire. Nobody was really paying attention to him at first but then we all went outside and sure enough something was falling from the sky."

The group eventually located the wreckage using the light from cell phones, according to Billy Dyson. "We walked past the little light over there to the right and we were going to keep going and we all stopped and looked back and there was a big fire over there. So we took off running as fast as we could and there was a plane crash right there."

Sarah Benton also joined in the search. "It was mostly just the outline of a plane. You could see where the propeller was and where it was facing. Everything was melted down."

This is a night these teenagers said they will never forget.

"It hurt, you know what I'm saying because it's somebody's life that is probably gone, you know you found it but you just think about their family. It's weird," said Mills.

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