Woomera, Australia
A model of a Japanese “jet of the future” plummeted to the ground and exploded on its first test flight this week. Japanese scientists hope their new supersonic jet will have twice the range of the Concorde with half the noise. In a test of an unmanned scale model one-tenth the size of the real plane, the aircraft flipped over and crashed just seconds after its launch in southern Australia. “This flight was just to check the system,” said Australian safety officer Peter Nikoloff. “And they found a problem.” Japanese scientists plan to conduct more tests. Their goal is to build a plane that can fly passengers from Japan to California in four hours.
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