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 Franky Zapata lifted off near the northern port of Calais with
42 liters of kerosene in his backpack, enough for about 10
minutes of flight. He planned to strap on a new backpack on a
vessel waiting midway across the 35-km wide Strait of Dover.
"It is a huge disappointment. He made his rendezvous with the
refueling boat, but the landing platform hit the flyboard, which
threw him off balance and knocked him into the water," support
crew member Stephane Denis told BFM television.
Zapata was making his attempt on the 110th anniversary of the
first powered flight between Britain and France.
But Denis said that with the landing platform two meters above
the deck, every movement of the ship on the waves was
exaggerated, making landing difficult.
"He had practiced this maneuver in heavier seas without
problems, but now, at the most important moment, it failed.
Today was the 110th anniversary of Bleriot's flight. It would
have been a poignant moment," Denis said.
He added that Zapata was unharmed and would make a new attempt
as soon as possible.
Zapata had received a 1.3 million euro grant from the French
army in late 2018 to help finance the development of the
hoverboard, which is powered by five small jet engines.
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Zapata took off from Sangatte, France, at 0706 GMT. Flying at up to
140 kph (87 mph) at an altitude of between 15 to 20 meters he had
hoped to reach to Dover in about 20 minutes.
He disappeared from spectators' view within moments, trailed by a
helicopter, but minutes later his team announced the attempt had
failed.
Zapata had wowed crowds during France's July 14 Bastille Day
celebrations, flying over a military parade on Paris' Place de la
Concorde in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron and
German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
On July 25, 1909, Frenchman Louis Bleriot became the first man to
fly across the Channel in an airplane. Since then, Channel crossings
have become a rite of passage for all kinds of new aircraft.
Zapata, a champion on jetski-powered waterboards, steers his craft
by leaning forward or backward and controls thrust with a throttle
connected to his 1,500 horsepower board.
(Reporting by Emilie Delwarde in Sangatte and Geert De Clercq in
Paris; Editing by Richard Lough)
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