The son of the founder of Zoom died in a plane crash in California (2 photos + 1 video)
24 January 2024
The crash of an electric homemade plane in California killed four people, including 27-year-old Isaac Zimmern, who was the son of 59-year-old Johann Zimmern, head of global education marketing at Zoom. 
Isaac Zimmern, 27, was with his longtime girlfriend Emma Wilmer-Shiles when they boarded the homemade, single-engine, four-seat Cozy Mark IV plane that crashed off the coast of Half Moon Bay in California last Sunday around 4 p.m. The plane was piloted by their friend Lochie Ferrier. Ferrier's fiancée, Cassidy Petit, was also on board.
The accident occurred a week ago, but it became known only today.
27-year-old Isaac Zimmern is the son of 59-year-old Zoom founder Johann Zimmern, reports the New York Post (NYP). Zimmern Sr. lives in San Francisco in a house worth $1 million, International Business Times reports. The younger Zimmern also previously lived in San Francisco with Emma Wilmer-Shiles, 27, and the couple were together for 10 years.
The heir to Zoom's founder later left his hometown to spend the last three years in New York City, working as a senior operations associate at Burrow, a Brooklyn-based furniture company.
An eyewitness who called 911, Sergeant Philip Hallworth of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office, reported seeing the plane crash into the water.
The cause of the crash is still unknown and an investigation is ongoing, the National Transportation Safety Board said, noting that a preliminary report would be ready in a few weeks. However, compiling a final probable cause report will take one to two years. The Federal Aviation Administration is also involved in the investigation.
So far, only the body of Emma Wilmer-Shiles has been found, and the US Coast Guard stopped search and rescue efforts less than a day after the disaster because the chances of survival for others on board were extremely unlikely, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The search for the bodies of Zimmern, Petit and Ferrier continues. Ferrier, an Australian well known in the experimental aircraft community, was an aerospace engineering graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
