JASPER, Ala. – A teen pilot killed along with two friends in an Alabama plane crash had his own key to the aircraft and had flown it many times, his mother said Wednesday, denying authorities' assertion that the plane had been taken without permission.

Sherrie Smith said her 17-year-old son Jordan Smith was the one flying the plane that went down in the Alabama woods Tuesday night. The Federal Aviation Administration said the Piper PA 30 crashed less than a mile from the Walker County Airport in Jasper, which is northwest of Birmingham.

Smith says the owner of the plane had let her son fly it many other times and had given him his own key. Her son was a high school junior who fell in love with flying at an early age and was one test short of earning his private pilot's license.