WESLACO - A Brownsville minister died Friday morning after his small-engine aircraft crashed outside the Mid Valley Airport, emergency management officials said.

Ralph Copeland, 70, flew into a fence bordering the facility during an attempt to land just before 11 a.m.

Crews transported his passenger - 38-year-old Aaron Voreis, of Brownsville - to Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen for observation, but the man was seen walking around the crash site shortly after the wreck, said Weslaco Emergency Management Coordinator George Garrett.

Eyewitnesses said the plane had attempted to land once before, circled the airport and began descending again shortly before the crash. But Garrett could not confirm those reports.

Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are expected to tour the scene later today