Swiss adventurer, who was carried by a home-made wing, plunges into sea
The Associated Press
updated 4:00 p.m. ET, Wed., Nov . 25, 2009
ATLANTERRA, Spain - A Swiss adventurer went down in the Atlantic on Wednesday while trying to fly from Morocco to Spain with jet-powered wings strapped to his back. A rescue helicopter pulled him from the water and he appeared unhurt.
Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters.
"The good news is that he fine," said Stuart Sterzel, spokesman for sponsors Webtel.mobi, told reporters on a beach outside this southern Spanish town, where Rossy was supposed to land.
"He gave the thumbs-up sign through the door of the helicopter," said Sterzel.
Sterzel said the wing malfunctioned, possibly due to engine failure, but said Rossy had deployed his parachute and landed in the water in a controlled fashion.
Rossy was flown to a hospital in the southern city of Jerez for a precautionary checkup.
Sterzel said a full rescue rehearsal with Rossy in the water had been carried out Tuesday and the team had been fully prepared.
He said Rossy would probably attempt the crossing again in the new year.
Homemade wing
The Spanish coast guard was expected to retrieve the wing and the parachute from the sea.
Rossy, a 50-year-old former fighter pilot, had attempted the feat wearing a homemade wing spanning 8 feet and powered by four kerosene-fueled jet engines.
A small plane took him to an altitude of 6,500 feet, Rossy then jumped out and began his flight.
His endeavor had been billed as the first intercontinental crossing by man using jet-powered wings — over the North Atlantic between Africa and Europe.
Rossy provided the first public demonstration of his homemade aircraft in May 2008, doing figure eights over the Alps before touching down near the eastern shore of Lake Geneva.
He flew across the English Channel in September last year, going from Calais, France, to Dover, England.
This time the weather was of particular concern because Rossy had to fly over the spot where the Atlantic flows into the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar. This makes for high winds that can suddenly change direction, or blow in two directions at once at different altitudes, organizers said.
"We are very proud of him," said Sterzel. "We are extremely satisfied with his attempt but if something is easy it's not a challenge."
Frightfully sorry, I meant to include these details from the clicked-on picture caption at the original link:
A picture released by Jet-man.com.prod shows Swiss Yves Rossy in the water off Tangiers on November 25, 2009. Swiss Yves Rossy ditched in the sea in a failed bid to fly from Africa to Europe using a jet-powered wing attached to his back, live television images showed. Rossy, 50, was seen in the water waving to rescuers as a helicopter approached to pluck him to safety. He had planned to fly 38 kilometres (23.6 miles) across the Strait of Gibraltar from Tangier in Morocco to Atlanterra in southern Spain, at a speed of 220 kilometres (138 miles an hour).
So... any guesses what went wrong with his jetpack? I doubt it's something as simple as "ran out of gas;" the guy's made flights of the same order of magnitude before, and seems competent enough to avoid such a thing.
Even the most sophisticated, superbly designed, and carefully maintained aircraft can malfunction. Or, more simply, shit happens.
I'm sure the engine failure will be investigated.
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While it's no fun at all that he was forced to ditch - that would seem to be a great indicator that his emergency measures are decent. If I recall correctly, didn't they include a parachute and automatic cutoff in case of anything going wrong?
His only way to land at all is by parachute as the landing speed would be too high for him to just start running in mid air and touch down, but yeah I do recall reading that they have an emergency system rigged to auto deploy the chute should something happen to the pilot, like hitting a bird.
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I would also assume that he's wearing the equivalent of one of those extremely expensive kevlar laminate motorcycle crash suits so that if none of his parachutes work he can just get really close to the ground and then unstrap himself from the wing and roll it out. With a good helmet he'd have a pretty good chance in that case of surviving.
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Won't that depend on how fast he's going? If he's descending faster than a motorcycle's crashing, then a motorcycle crash suit might not work. If he lacks flotation devices and if his kevlar suit is too heavy, he'll end up drowning or something.
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Sea Skimmer wrote:His only way to land at all is by parachute as the landing speed would be too high for him to just start running in mid air and touch down, but yeah I do recall reading that they have an emergency system rigged to auto deploy the chute should something happen to the pilot, like hitting a bird.
In one of the old threads I linked to above, an article about Rossy's device says:
Should things go wrong — and Rossy says they have more times than not — there's always a yellow handle to jettison the wings and unfold the parachute.
Perhaps he does have an auto-deploy system by now, though.
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