NEW YORK—After crossing Asia, the Pacific Ocean, and America, Solar Impulse 2 arrived in New York at 4 a.m. on Saturday, June 11. The solar powered aircraft that uses no fuel flew over the Statue of Liberty before landing at JFK International Airport.
The aircraft took off from Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania at midnight. And after a short flight, entered the bay over the Verrazano Bridge at an altitude of 1500 feet from 2:00 am to 3:15 am EDT.
The flight is part of an attempt to achieve the first ever round-the-world solar flight with a goal to demonstrate the power of clean technologies.
Swiss innovators and pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg launched the Solar Impulse project in 2003 and started building the revolutionary aircraft. After 12 years of research and development, they initiated their journey in 2015 to show it is possible to save our planet by using clean energy.
The plane is not being used for commercial purposes or to carry passengers. It was built to convey a message.
“The problem with our society is that, despite all the grand talk about sustainable development, we are a long way from making use of the clean technologies that are already available to us. Those solutions bring opportunities to create jobs, make profit, sustain the growth of the industry, and at the same time protect the environment,” said Bertrand Piccard on the group’s website.
It is not the first solar airplane, but it is the first to fly day and night only using energy stored during day flights in its batteries. This allows the plane to cross oceans and complete a tour around the world.
The Journey
