Title: John Denver had lost pilot's license
Headings: John Denver had lost pilot's license
John Denver had lost pilot's license
Content: Experts said the craft can stay aloft if it stalls or loses power. George Rutan, a recreational pilot and father of the Long-EZ's designer, said the sudden nose dive by Denver's Long-EZ puzzles him. "On that airplane, you can't get the nose to drop that way unless you push the control stick forward," Rutan said. "To get the nose down like that, you have to be real purposeful." Rutan said that even in a stall a pilot can generally generate enough speed to regain lift by diving 200 feet. "Pilots know that low and slow is a bad combination," said Rutan, who speculates that Denver may have been flying too low. Authorities said he was flying at about 500 feet. The notion that Denver could somehow have purposefully turned the nose of the plane down struck Burke as unthinkable. " That man, he loved life so much, it's kind of hard to believe that. So either something broke or he became disabled."