Anything But Safe and Reliable
Some said that if the front wing had broken away, the small plane would have lost its stability and fallen right out of the sky. A veteran Long-EZ pilot said Denver could have been so distracted by setting his radar systems properly that he didn’t even notice the plane heading toward the sea. As it turns out, Denver’s experimental plane was anything but safe and reliable.
Photo by Globe Photos / mediapunch / Shutterstock
Canard Aviators, a group of home-built aircraft enthusiasts, stated that the Long-EZ aircraft (the one Denver was flying) had suffered 61 accidents (reported to the safety board) between 1983 and 1996. Of those 61, 19 of them involved fatalities.