Copyright 2009 HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Jan. 29, 2009, 6:19PM

Three people are believed to have died after the experimental plane they were in crashed this afternoon near Anahuac.

The Texas Department of Public Safety received a report that a plane had crashed about 2:30 p.m., and that two or three people were on board, a dispatcher said. Preliminary reports are that those on board were killed, the dispatcher said.

Preliminary information indicates the crash occurred near Highway 563, south of the Chambers County airport, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Roland Herwig.

Investigators at the scene were not commenting on the accident. They stood in a circle around the small, white crumpled plane. The craft was upside down in a hay field close to Bayshore Road between Oak Island and Anahuac.

"We have no information at this time on where the plane was going or coming from," Herwig said.

The home-built craft is registered to a Baytown man, Herwig said.