Basic Errors Led to Denver's Death "Inadequate preflight…failure to refuel the airplane…causal," Safety Board Finds

Air Safety Week, Feb 15, 1999

Folk singer John Denver's 1997 death while flying a Long-EZ kit-built airplane underscores two of the greatest dangers in flying: complacency and bad cockpit design. The latter can compound the risk of the former.

The particulars are laid out in a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Feb. 3d letter to the Aviation Insurance Association, urging formalized, type-specific transition training for pilots like Denver.

Denver was the third owner when he purchased the swept-wing, forward canard, pusher-prop tandem-seat Bert Rutan design Sept. 27, 1997. About 1,200 Long-EZ planes have been built.

The day before the Oct. 12th crash, Denver received a half-hour ground and flight checkout of his new airplane before taking it on a one-hour solo flight to his home airport. According to an air traffic control tape, the checkout flight lasted only about 10 minutes.

On the day of the accident, Denver knowingly took off with just 3_ gallons of fuel in the left wing-root tank and 6_ gallons in the right tank. Both tanks hold 26 gallons. In fact, the engine had popped and stopped, probably from fuel starvation, when the plane was on the ground. Denver was observed turning to switch the fuel valve to another tank before takeoff.

Shortly thereafter, the engine popping was heard again, and the airplane pitched over and crashed into the water off Pacific Grove, Calif. The likely scenario: When the engine stopped in flight, Denver turned to flip the fuel tank switch. Based on test flights after the crash, as he turned his body while reaching for the switch, his foot inadvertently pressed down on the rudder pedal.

The Long-EZ is sensitive to rudder inputs and it is possible to aileron-roll the airplane from rudder inputs only.

The Board concluded tersely: "...the builder's decision to locate the unmarked fuel selector handle in a hard-to-access position...inadequate transition training by the pilot, and his lack of total experience in the type of airplane were factors in the accident." The findings have a universal application: to those designing and those flying everything from ultralights to jumbo jets.