Category: Civil Aviation

The plane, registered VH-VPY, was en route to Pago Pago in American Samoa when it lost an engine and was forced to come down in the ocean about 35 nautical miles off the coast of Queensland. A nearby RFDS aircraft was able to provide accurate coordinates to emergency services.

The green aviation company will use the grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to develop hydrogen fuel cell technology, enabling Vertiia to reach a range of up to 1,000km for applications such as emergency services as well as passenger and cargo transport.

The crash, which saw the Shine Aviation Services light aircraft VH-TBU end up nose-down in the water, resulted from an unstable approach after the pilot chose not to perform a go-around. Nobody was injured in the incident.

Air Race X will see pilots race at various global sites on a “tight and technical track” at speeds of up to 370km/h and maximum gravity acceleration of 12G, with the flight data then used to create virtual, augmented and mixed-reality images of the planes racing each other.