JACKSON, Miss. — Three pilots flying together to a federal safety conference died when their single-engine plane faltered in midair and crashed into a house that went up in flames.

The three men had just taken off from Hawkins Field Airport in Jackson on Tuesday when a witness said the Piper PA-32 began "spitting and sputtering."

The witness, a Jackson police officer, saw the plane sputtering like it was out of fuel, he would later tell the plane's owner — a budding pilot whose own life was spared when he decided to go deer hunting instead of flying. The men on board were headed to a Federal Aviation Administration safety conference less than 30 miles away.