Tech executive, 57, killed when his private plane crashed just minutes from airport

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A witness who saw the plane go down described 'the back part of it on fire.' Air traffic control audio captured the pilot saying: 'It looks like we're going in the trees.'

Published: 21:33 GMT, 12 November 2026 | Updated: 21:38 GMT, 12 November 2026

A healthcare tech company executive has died after his small private plane's engine likely caught fire and the aircraft crashed into a wooded area.

Eric Stephens, 57, a married father of two and the founder of Georgia health tech company zPaper, was killed in the plane crash on Tuesday evening.

First responders rushed to the site of the crash around 5.30pm. They found Stephens's body amid the wreckage in a wooded area of Lawrenceville, a city in Georgia about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta.

A second person in the aircraft, identified by authorities as Peter Magnuson, survived the crash and was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The Velocity-173 FG that crashed was registered to Stephens, though it is unclear if he or Magnuson were piloting the plane when it went down.

The aircraft had taken off from Gwinnett County Airport and was in the air for about 90 minutes before the pilot reported engine trouble, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.

It crashed about a mile southeast of the same airport while attempting an emergency landing.

A witness who lives about 20 miles from the crash site, Jenny Constantino, told Atlanta News First that she saw the plane going down and that it appeared to be on fire.

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