BOISE, Idaho — A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board says the pilot in a small plane crash in Oregon near the Idaho border had earned his private license less than three months before the accident.

KBOI-TV in Boise, Idaho, reports the cause of the crash that killed three people from the Nampa-Boise area remains under investigation.

But according to the NTSB preliminary report, the flight left Ontario in Eastern Oregon about 15 minutes before the Jan. 29 accident and there was fog reported in the area.

The bodies of the pilot, Andrey Pasechnikov, 38; his mother, Vera Pasechnikov, 69; and his brother-in-law, Yuriy Ludan, 24, were found Jan. 30 in the wreckage of a single-engine Cessna 182 in a canyon near Adrian in Malheur County.