The jet-powered experimental airplane that crashed and burned in Tennessee on Saturday had lost its left wing in flight, NTSB investigators said in an update on Monday afternoon. Lance Hooley, 58, of Kissimmee, Florida, died in the crash. He had worked on the airplane for 13 years and built it from his own design, adapted from Burt Rutan’s two-seat Long EZ.It was powered by a GE-T58-8 engine.
Hooley was a JetBlue pilot and had started flight lessons at age 14. Although inspired by the Long EZ, Hooley’s aircraft differed substantially from the classic Rutan airplane. “It’s bigger, it’s longer, obviously it’s faster,” he told AVweb in an interview at Sun ‘n Fun in 2017. “Internally, it’s totally different from a Long EZ.” At this year’s Sun ‘n Fun, the aircraft won Best Owner Design in the Homebuilt category. The NTSB is expected to release a preliminary report next week.
