<p>A small plane crashed Friday in rural western North Carolina, killing the three men on board, officials said.</p><p>The single-engine Cessna 182 departed around 9:30 a.m. from Dublin, Ga., and was headed for Asheville Regional Airport when it disappeared from radar around 11 a.m.</p><p>Air traffic control lost contact with the plane about 1 1/2 miles northwest of the airport, said Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta.</p><p>Officials at W.H. Bud Barron Airport in Dublin said those killed were James V. Hilburn, Jefferson I. Davis III and James Rodney Connell. The plane, built in 1977, was registered to Hilburn and two other men who were not on the plane when it crashed, according to the FAA and the airport.</p><p>"I knew all three of them," said Allen Kyzer, an assistant manager at Dublin Air Service. "It's a blow, no doubt."</p><p>He said Hilburn was a local attorney and Davis had recently retired from Uniroyal Chemical Co.</p><p>"Nobody could ask for a better friend than Jeff Davis. He was loyal as a Lab and as feisty as a Chihuahua," said Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue. "If he was your friend, he loved you, warts and all. ... His humor and his love of life were unsurpassed on this earth."</p><p>Georgia Speaker of the House Glenn Richardson, R-Hiram, also issued a statement. "My sincere condolences go out to the family of Jeff Davis. The state of Georgia and everyone who had ever met him has lost a good friend. His many friends and his family are in my thoughts and prayers."</p><p>Connell worked in Dublin as an independent driver for Pitts Toyota-Scion, where he picked up and delivered cars bought and sold by the dealer, said Jerry Pitts, a co-owner of the dealership.</p><p>Pitts said the three men were flying to North Carolina to pick up a car Hilburn was buying for his wife. Connell was to drive the car back to Georgia while Hilburn and Davis flew home, Pitts said.</p><p>Davis was licensed as a commercial pilot, and Hilburn had a private pilot's license, according to FAA records.</p><p>"I was close friends with Jim Hilburn, and Jeff Davis and I were good friends and we were good-hearted friends," said Georgia House minority leader Dubose Porter, D-Dublin. "He was a good Republican. I was a good Democrat. We both enjoyed kidding each other about our respective politics."</p><p>The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating the crash.</p>
