Fourth victim of deadly homemade aircraft crash identified

Mark Moran
·2 min read
113
UPI
Rutan Cosy III built in 1993 is pictured at Kemble Airfield in Gloucestershire, England. Photo by Adrian Pingstone/Wikimedia Commons

Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Officials have announced the name of the fourth victim of the crash of a homemade airplane in California, including the son of a Zoom executive, officials said.

Isaac Zimmern, 27, and long-time girlfriend Emma Wilmer-Shiles climbed aboard a kit-built aircraft that was piloted by their friend, Lochie Ferrier, the New York Post reported. Ferrier and his fiance, Cassidy Petit, also died in the crash last week.

Zimmern was the son of Johann Zimmern, 59, the head of Global Education Marketing at Zoom, who lives in San Francisco, according to International Business Times.

Isaac Zimmern was also living in San Francisco with Wilmer-Shiles, 27. The couple had been together for a decade.

Zimmern spent the last three years working in New York City as a senior operations associate for Burrow, a Brooklyn-based furniture manufacturing company, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The plane was identified as a Cozy Mark IV, a single-engine, four-seater kit plane. It crashed last Sunday around 4 p.m. off the coast of Half Moon Bay.

A witness told a 911 operator that the plane was hurtling toward the water after hearing "the engine sputter," according to Sgt. Philip Hallworth of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the cause of the accident is under investigation and a preliminary report would be filed in a week or two. The cause could take as long as two years to fully investigate, however, the NTSB said.

The Federal Aviation Administration is also part of the investigation.

The U.S. Coast Guard called off the search-and-rescue operation less than a day in, saying it was unlikely that any of the victims survived the crash, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Only Wilmer-Shiles' body has been found so far.

The San Mateo County Sheriff's Office will continue to look for the bodies of Zimmern, Petit and Ferrier.

Ferrier, an Australian, was well-known in the experimental aircraft community. He graduated MIT with a degree in aerospace engineering.