A twin-engine Cessna 421 en route from West Houston Airport to Tulsa Riverside Airport in Oklahoma crashed Monday night and DPS authorities say the pilot who was the lone occupant died in the crash.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the aircraft about 9:30 p.m. Monday. FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford says in a news release that the aircraft had been trying to avoid weather near Cherokee County in East Texas when it vanished from radar.

According to KTRE in Lufkin, the pilot 64-year-old John Thomas Steeper of Broken Bow, Oklahoma went down in a severe storm that moved through the area Monday night.

Searchers discovered the aircraft's wreckage in a field near Wells, Texas, late Monday evening.

FAA investigators will join National Transportation Safety Board officials Tuesday to probe the cause of the crash.

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