Update | Bad weather forces Solar Impulse to land in Japan during trans-Pacific crossing attempt

Bad weather has thwarted the trans-Pacific crossing of Solar Impulse, the Swiss experimental plane which took off from Nanjing on Sunday for Haiwaii on a six-day non-stop flight powered only by the sun.

Just a little over 36 hours into its journey, the plane was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Nagoya, Japan because of deteriorating weather, the team said on its website on Monday afternoon. It was expected to touch down in Nagoya at around 11pm local time and wait for better conditions before resuming its mission.

“On my way to Nagoya, disappointed for not continuing but very thankful to the Japanese authorities for their support,” tweeted pilot Andre Borschberg at 3.23pm (Hong Kong time) from the cockpit.

The Swiss businessman heading the project left Nanjing at 2.39am on Sunday in the single-seater monoplane for the longest and most challenging leg of its round-the-world journey after spending two months in China, unable to find a weather window.

Aeronaut and psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard, initiator of the project, said on Twitter: “This diversion is between elation and disappointment: #Si2 is doing extremely well, but the weather is deteriorating. Everything we could do has been done. The weather we cannot control. This is what exploration is about.”