Si2 has arrived in Europe after 71 hours and 8 minutes of flying across the Atlantic Ocean.
What a moment to remember! Bertrand Piccard has safely landed in Seville, Spain after spending 71 hours and 8 minutes flying across the Atlantic Ocean in a solar airplane, welcomed there by André Borschberg. He took off from New York City at 6:30AM UTC, 8:30AM CET, 2:30AM EDT on June 20th and has finally reached Europe after a spectacular flight. Charles Lindbergh completed the first transatlantic flight in 1927 from New York to Paris, and now Bertrand Piccard brings aviation to the next level with clean technology.
A beautiful flight that has countlessly left Bertrand in awe at the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean - encountering oil tankers, islands, whales, icebergs, and an abundance of water. This flight is Bertrand Piccard's longest flight with Si2 - reaching a total flight time of 71 hours and 8 minutes to make it across the pond to Europe on the round-the-world solar flights.
His solar brother, André Borschberg, joined the mission engineers at the Mission Control Center in Monaco during the first half of the flight to help plan and follow the flight as closely as possible. They had a few chats over the satcom where André shared his experience from his 117 hour flight. Then he had to race off to Seville, Spain to get the ground crew operations underway, preparing for Bertrand Piccard's landing. Michèle Piccard, Bertrand's partner, also passed by the Mission Control Center for two days during the flight to watch the flight from up close and support Bertrand.
"We have now accomplished the crossing of both the Pacific and the Atlantic, the world's two biggest oceans. This means that 90% of the Round-The-World journey is already behind us. That number sounds completely crazy!What lies ahead for the remaining 10%? Still a mystery. What we know is that we'll be staying a few days in Seville – not sure about the organization of a public day yet– and then fly to Egypt or Greece," said the team on their blog.