A man died after he stole a plane from an airport in Addison, Texas, then crashed it near the Texas-Oklahoma border Wednesday, officials said.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said the plane, a Cessna 172, was stolen from the ATP Flight School at Addison Airport, about 15 miles north of downtown Dallas.
The pilot — identified by the DPS as Logan Timothy James, 23, of Stokesdale, North Carolina — then flew the plane more than 80 miles northeast toward Paris, Texas, before it crashed near the state border, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported.
Addison Airport told the station the plane departed the airport at 6:53 p.m. Wednesday.
It went down about 8:26 p.m. local time in an open field 9 miles northeast of Telephone, Texas. James was the only person on board, the DPS said.
It is not immediately clear whether the pilot radioed for help or declared an emergency before he crashed.
An air traffic control recording from earlier in the flight captured an exchange about his plans.
“About right now you’ll probably realize that I’m not going to listen to y’all’s instructions and I’m just heading to East Texas,” he said, according to ATC recordings obtained by NBC News. “I’m going to pull the comm 1 circuit breaker and the comm 2 circuit breaker right here soon, as soon as I unkey the mic.”
The National Transportation Safety Board, with assistance from the Federal Aviation Administration, is leading the investigation, the DPS said.
