zakur
27th June 2003, 08:19 AM
NASA's solar-wing crashes in Pacific (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993882)
A record breaking uncrewed solar aeroplane developed by NASA crashed into the Pacific during a test flight on Thursday.
The Helios aircraft held the altitude record for a non-jet-powered aircraft after ascending to 29,500 metres in August 2001.
The experimental remote-controlled plane crash-landed 29 minutes after taking off from a US air base on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. NASA has yet to determine the cause of the crash but has appointed accident investigators. This will include officials from AeroVironment, the California-based company that built Helios for NASA.
"We were flying at about the 8000-foot [1800 metres] altitude west of Kauai over the ocean and the aircraft simply broke up," Alan Brown, a spokesman for NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California, told Associated Press.
A record breaking uncrewed solar aeroplane developed by NASA crashed into the Pacific during a test flight on Thursday.
The Helios aircraft held the altitude record for a non-jet-powered aircraft after ascending to 29,500 metres in August 2001.
The experimental remote-controlled plane crash-landed 29 minutes after taking off from a US air base on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. NASA has yet to determine the cause of the crash but has appointed accident investigators. This will include officials from AeroVironment, the California-based company that built Helios for NASA.
"We were flying at about the 8000-foot [1800 metres] altitude west of Kauai over the ocean and the aircraft simply broke up," Alan Brown, a spokesman for NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California, told Associated Press.