Boeing eVTOL Prototype Crashes

Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Science’s autonomous Passenger Air Vehicle (PAV) electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) prototype crashed during its fifth test flight, company spokespeople told several news outlets at the Uber Elevate Summit this week. No one was injured in the accident—the PAV was flying unmanned—and no damage beyond that sustained by the aircraft has been reported. The cause of the crash, which occurred on June 4 in Manassas, Virginia, is under investigation.

As previously reported by AVweb, the full-scale PAV prototype completed its first successful test flight on January 22, 2019. Since then, it has made three other incident-free flights. The prototype is 30 feet long with a 28-foot wingspan and has a range of approximately 43 NM. The aircraft is being developed as part of Boeing NeXt, a division of the company that focuses on urban air mobility research and development, for use as an air taxi.