Denver Was Flying Illegally, Faa Says

WASHINGTON - Singer John Denver was flying illegally when he was killed in the crash of his experimental aircraft into Monterey Bay on Sunday, federal officials said.

The Federal Aviation Administration had asked Denver to stop flying almost a year ago after learning he had been involved in alcohol-related automobile accidents, and had suspended the medical certificate all pilots must have to fly, aviation sources said yesterday.

Denver returned unopened or did not reply to several certified letters asking him to voluntarily surrender his FAA medical certificate on grounds that it was no longer valid. He had been flying illegally since at least March, when he finally accepted a certified letter, officials said.

The FAA said it had not yet initiated legal action to require Denver to give up the certificate, which was issued under his original name, Henry John Deutschendorf. Sources said the agency is looking into why seven months had passed with no legal action. In any case, his pilot's license was not valid without a valid medical certificate.

Denver was arrested twice in Colorado on drunken-driving charges, in 1993 and 1994, and was scheduled for trial on one of the charges in January. FAA spokesmen refused to say whether the alcohol arrests were the reason for its letters to Denver. However, aviation sources said Denver apparently acknowledged the arrests when he last applied for a medical certificate.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, said yesterday that Denver was practicing takeoffs and landings Sunday at the Monterey, Calif., airport in a Long EZ experimental aircraft that he had purchased the day before.

George Peterson, the NTSB investigator in charge, said Denver then requested air-traffic clearance to Monterey Bay.

Controllers informed him that his transponder was not working. A transponder is a radio beacon aboard planes that enhances a plane's radar image and can report other information, such as altitude, to controllers automatically. Denver then radioed back, "How about now?" and was told the transponder was working.

Denver did not reply to the controller's acknowledgement, and the transponder image then disappeared from the radar screen.

Peterson said the plane's engine was recovered yesterday for examination. The rest of the wreckage was to be taken to a hangar.

Denver's publicist, Paul Shefrin, said today that his body had been cremated and that friends planned to take the ashes back to Colorado.