Singer John Denver died in an airplane crash because he took off with too little fuel in one tank, had trouble switching to his backup tank and inadvertently put his plane into a roll while his attention was diverted, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded Tuesday. The board, in a 5-0 vote, also blamed a builder’s decision to relocate the fuel-tank-selector handle and an absence of markings on the handle and nearby fuel gauges, as well as Denver’s lack of training in his new plane. It crashed Oct. 12, 1997, off Pacific Grove, Calif. The board urged the Federal Aviation Administration and the Experimental Aircraft Association to develop a program under which new pilots of experimental planes would receive formalized training before their first flights.
