France: French inventor Franky Zapata was forced to make an emergency water landing during his latest attempt to cross the English Channel in his new flying machine, the AirScooter, which resembles a mini helicopter. The failure occurred due to a technical fault in the combustion engine, causing a loss of electrical power mid-flight.

Zapata said, "I was forced to abandon. We couldn't maintain electrical power because of a fault with an internal combustion engine. It doesn't happen to us very often, we rarely have mechanical incidents, but it can happen, because it's a brand new machine."

Zapata, known for his 2019 Channel crossing on a jet-powered Flyboard, emphasised that while the situation was stressful, it was not frightening.

"The machine was working fine, but we had a broken combustion engine. When the batteries dropped to seven to eight per cent, I decided to land before losing control," he explained.

He further said, "The future? We have to cross again, like last time. That's for sure. After that, well, it's a bit of a holiday period."

He also expressed hope that permissios would not be an issue moving forward. "We have authorisations until August 15. Everything worked out pretty much as we'd imagined. It didn't go well, we landed on the water, nothing catastrophic. I don't think we'll have any problems getting our permits."