The pilot killed in the fatal small plane crash just north of Mattituck Inlet yesterday has been identified. Zubair Khan, a 41-year-old Manhattan resident who lived in Greenwich Village, was the only person in the aircraft.
According to Newsday, "Another aircraft in the area spotted Khan's downed plane and contacted the Coast Guard Sector Long Island Sound command center in New Haven, Connecticut... Southold police Det. Sgt. John Sinning said the aircraft was submerged but did not sink." Khan's body was found inside the plane.
Khan was a vice president of derivatives trading technology at Barclays. His friend Eli Snyder told the Post, "Zubair has had his flight license for ages. I’ve flown with him before. I’ve done loop-de-loops with him in stunt planes. He was a pretty experienced pilot. He built that plane himself. It was a crazy, insane, beautiful thing actually." But a Mattituck resident said, "I don’t know if I’d be flying seven miles off the coast in a homemade plane. But he did. It’s a horrible thing to see somebody wheeling in a plane when you know somebody’s mourning a lost life."
Khan posted videos of himself with different planes on YouTube, including one where his nose landing prompted a visit from the Mastic Fire Department:
