WASHINGTON: An unmanned solar-powered aircraft crashed after flying for 64 days, more than doubling the record for a pilotless plane, the US army and media sources said on Tuesday.
The Zephyr-8 drone, made by Europe’s Airbus, “encountered events that led to its unexpected termination” over a desert test facility in Arizona on Aug 18, the Army Futures Command said in a statement.
The statement did not provide details, but the Simple Flying website, studying online flight tracking data, said the gangly high-tech aircraft was flying in S-shaped patterns over south-western US at 45,000-50,000 feet when it suddenly descended at an accelerated rate.
The army did not explain what happened, but said there were no injuries from the incident.
“Our team is working hard to gather and analyse important data following the unexpected termination of this flight,” Michael Monteleone, director of the army programme overseeing the flight, said in a statement.
The solar-powered Zephyr, with a 25-metre wingspan and weighing just 75 kilograms, had more than doubled the previous flight record for an unmanned aircraft.
The flight fell just shy of the all-time record for any propeller-driven aircraft. In 1959, two pilots flew a Cessna 172 over the south-western US desert for 64 days, 22 hours, and 19 minutes, refuelling twice a day from a pickup truck driving beneath them on the ground.
The Zephyr flew nearly the entire time in the stratosphere, testing its ability to collect and transmit data and be directed via satellite connections, according to the US army and Airbus.
Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2022
