The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Spain Thursday after completing a 71-hour flight from New York in the first "magical" solo transatlantic crossing in a solar-powered airplane. Applause broke out as the experimental plane set down at Seville airport in southern Spain just before 7:40 am (0540 GMT) where a team was on the ground to welcome Swiss pilot and adventurer Bertrand Piccard.
"It is so fantastic!", Piccard told the plane's mission control centre in Monaco in remarks broadcast online as the plane, which took off from New York on Monday, touched down. Exhilarated, the 58-year-old told AFP he had thought a lot about aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic, during the 6,765-kilometre (4,200-mile) flight.
"I met him when I was 11, we were both at the Apollo 12 take-off, and for me Lindbergh is one of these heroes who did what no one thought was possible," Piccard said by phone. With the success of this challenging crossing, Solar Impulse has completed the 15th leg of a round-the-world trip aimed at promoting clean, renewable energy.
It set out on March 9, 2015, in Abu Dhabi, and has flown across Asia and the Pacific to the United States with the sun as its only source of power - able to fly through the night with energy stored in its 17,000 photovoltaic cells. The voyage marks the first solo transatlantic crossing of a plane with only solar power - a trip close to Piccard's heart as he had crossed that same ocean in 1999 on the first non-stop air balloon circumnavigation of the globe without fuel.
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