Solar Impulse 2 starts historic Atlantic crossing

The Solar Impulse 2 aeroplane has started its historic crossing of the Atlantic after departing New York City.

The Atlantic stage is one of the longest and most challenging of attempt to circumnavigate the globe in a solar powered plane.

Bertrand Piccard, one of the pilots and co-founders of the Solar Impulse project, will attempt to reach Seville in Spain in about 90 hours.

The plane was scheduled to take off on Sunday but was delayed by bad weather.

Solar Impulse 2 is a single seater aircraft and Mr Piccard shares the flying time over the 35,000km round-the-world journey with Swiss entrepreneur Andre Borschberg.

The top layer of the plane’s wings are covered with 17,000 photovoltaic cells that store energy to power the aircraft at night.

The circumnavigation attempt started on 9 March last year in Abu Dhabi.