Jet Man forced to ditch by the weather

Yves Rossy, the Swiss adventurer nicknamed Jet Man, was forced to ditch in the sea during a failed bid to make the first intercontinental flight using a jet-powered wing attached to his back.

Rossy, 50, planned to fly 24 miles across the the Strait of Gibraltar from Tangier in Morocco to Atlanterra in southern Spain, at a speed of almost 140mph, a flight that should have taken about 13 minutes.

The former fighter pilot planned to jump from a plane at 6,500ft and use his four-cylinder jet pack to power the eight-foot carbon fibre wing at speeds of up to 180mph from Africa to southern Spain. He was then going to cut his engines, open his parachute and land in Spain.

After about 15 minutes into the flight, however, Rossy disappeared from live television pictures.

Organisers wrote on the micro-blogging site Twitter: “He may be in the sea. We have a search and rescue team in place.” Television pictures later showed Rossy in the Atlantic, swimming around beside his parachute, while a helicopter prepared to winch him to safety.