(AP) — A high-profile former lawyer says he was a passenger on a twin-engine jet hours before it crashed in northern Mississippi.

Richard “Dickie” Scruggs tells the Clarion Ledger that he and his family flew Saturday from Colorado back to their home in Oxford, Mississippi.

Pilot Tommy Nix, his wife Merline Nix and co-pilot Jarrod Holloway then left Oxford to fly to Alabama’s Marion County-Rankin Fite Airport.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Rick Breitenfeldt told The Associated Press the Rockwell Sabreliner 65 aircraft crashed about 10:30 p.m. Saturday between New Albany and Blue Springs.

Union County Sheriff Jimmy Edwards says all three were killed.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.

Scruggs gained national prominence as one of the lead attorneys for massive tobacco lawsuits in the 1990s.