Solar-powered plane completes first flight crossing Atlantic in 71 hours

The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Spain on Thursday after completing a 71-hour flight from New York in the first "magical" solo transatlantic crossing in a solar-powered airplane.

Applause broke out as the plane set down in Seville just before 7:40 am where a team was on the ground to welcome Swiss pilot and adventurer Bertrand Piccard.

"It is so fantastic!" Piccard told the plane's mission control center in Monaco in remarks broadcast online as the plane, which took off from New York on Monday, touched down.

Exhilarated, the 58-year-old said he had thought a lot about aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic, during the 6,765-kilometer flight.

"I met him when I was 11, we were both at the Apollo 12 takeoff, and for me Lindbergh is one of these heroes who did what no one thought was possible," he said by phone.

With the success of this challenging crossing, Solar Impulse has completed the 15th leg of a round-the-world trip aimed at promoting clean energy.

It set out on March 9, 2015 in Abu Dhabi, and has flown across Asia and the Pacific to the United States with the sun as its only source of power - able to fly through the night by energy stored in its 17,000 photo voltaic cells.

The voyage marks the first solo transatlantic crossing powered only by sunlight - a trip close to Piccard's heart as he crossed that same ocean in 1999 on the first non-stop air balloon circumnavigation of the globe without fuel.

"Good morning Seville! Do you have a lot of direct flights from NYC?" he tweeted before coming into land, when he was treated to a acrobatic display put on by the Spanish air force.

Piccard experienced what he described as "along night of turbulence" but was also treated to sightings of whales and ice-bergs, and even spotted a commercial plane flying past him. Solar Impulse is being flown on its 35,400-km trip round the world in stages, with Piccard and his Swiss compatriot Andre Borschberg taking turns at the controls of the sin-gle-seat plane.

After the Atlantic crossing, Borschberg is due to fly to Egypt, and Piccard will make the final journey back to Abu Dhabi in early July.