MONROE CENTER – Ogle County Sheriff’s deputies are awaiting autopsy results to determine the official cause of death of a Monee man killed Tuesday when he crashed his single-engine plane in a cornfield.

Sheriff Michael Harn said an autopsy was conducted Wednesday on Thomas Plodzien, 77. The coroner’s findings should be available in the next day or 2, Harn said.

Deputies were contacted by the Chicago Rockford Airport Communication Center around 7:36 a.m. Plodzien, who was en route from DeKalb to Rockford, reported a small fire in his Lancair 235M and said he didn’t think he would make it to the airport.