A hothead pilot made history by flying his racing plane through two long tunnels while going at more than 150mph.
The nail-biting feat – which set five new world records – had never before been attempted until stunt pilot Dario Costa of Italy flew his specially modified Zivko Edge 540 racing aircraft through the Tunnel Pass system near Istanbul, Turkey on Saturday.
Precision was the essential most requirement since the stunt player maintained an altitude of little less than three feet while strong concrete literally surrounded his aircraft on all sides while he winged through two tunnels on the Northern Marmara Motorway in Catalca Mevki.
Despite a cross-wind, the Red Bull stunt pilot perfectly navigated aircraft through first the 360-metre tunnel and then into a longer second one, which measured 1,160 metres.
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The whole stunt spanned over action-packed 43.44 seconds and Costa celebrated with a 360-degree loop and punching his fist in delight as soon as he conquered his mark.
He earned five Guinness World Record certificates:
- For the longest tunnel flown through with a plane,
- The first aeroplane flight through a tunnel,
- The longest flight under a solid obstacle,
- The first aeroplane flight through two tunnels, and
- The first aeroplane take-off from a tunnel.
After he landed and hopped off his bird, Costa said he was ‘very emotional’ about his new feathers in the cap, which was more than a year in the planning and required a team of 40 people.
“You don’t know what to expect. You don’t know if it’s going to go good,” he said. “I have never flown in a tunnel in my life. Nobody [has] ever done [it].”
“So, there was a big question mark in my head, if everything would have been like we expected, or there would have been something to improvise. So yeah, it was a big relief of course, but big, big happiness. That was the biggest emotion of the two.”
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