全球最大飛行器第二次試飛失敗

It was a slow and gentle plunge: The world’s largest aircraft, the Airlander 10, crashed in southern England on Wednesday during its second test flight.

那是一個緩慢而柔和的俯衝：週三，世界上最大的飛行器“天空登陸者10號”(Airlander 10)在第二次試飛期間墜落在英格蘭南部。

In a video posted on YouTube, spectators could be heard saying, “Oh my God, he just crashed it,” as the nose of the aircraft made contact with the ground after an agonizingly slow descent at Cardington Airfield, about 40 miles north of London, before coming to rest.

在發佈於YouTube的一段視頻中可以看到，在飛行器的前端觸到地面時，觀衆在喊，“天哪，他落地了。”此前，它在倫敦以北40英里處的卡丁頓機場(Cardington Airfield)上空經歷了極其緩慢的降落過程，最終停了下來。

Hybrid Air Vehicles — the British developer of the 302-foot, 44,100-pound, helium-filled aircraft, which has a top cruising speed of about 90 miles an hour — said on Twitter that the crew members were “safe and well.”

這架氦氣飛行器的英國製造商混合動力飛行器公司(Hybrid Air Vehicles)在Twitter上表示，飛行人員“安全無恙”。這架飛行器長302英尺（約合92米），重4.41萬磅（約合2萬公斤），最高巡航速度約爲90英里/每小時。

“Airlander sustained damage on landing during today’s flight,” the company added, though “no damage was sustained midair.”

“在今天的飛行中，天空登陸者在落地時遭到損壞，”公司還表示，但它“在半空中沒有受損”。

The first test flight of the Airlander 10 was postponed on Aug. 14 after Stephen McGlennan, the chief executive of Hybrid Air Vehicles, said the airship had “a slight technical issue.” It completed its initial test flight three days later.

混合動力飛行器首席執行官史蒂芬•麥克格倫南(Stephen McGlennan)在8月14日推遲了“天空登陸者10號”第一次試飛的時間，表示這艘飛艇有個“小技術問題”需要解決。三天後，它完成了首次試飛。

On Wednesday morning, however, spectators watched as the ship slowly nose-dived and made an unplanned landing on its cockpit. The company did not provide an explanation as to why the aircraft had come down.

然而，週三早上，觀衆卻看到這艘飛艇在緩慢地俯身下落，意外地以底部的駕駛艙觸地着陸。公司沒有解釋飛行器爲何會掉下來。

“It was going so well,” said Angela Hatwell, who posted several photographs of the aircraft on Facebook and described the airship’s flight as an “absolutely amazing sight.”

“它正飛得好好的，”安傑拉•哈特韋爾(Angela Hatwell)說。她在Facebook上發佈了好幾張飛行器的圖片，還把它的飛行描述爲“極其令人驚歎的景象”。

“It was awful to watch,” she wrote of the crash.

“看起來挺可怕，”她在描述飛行器的意外着陸時寫道。

One of Ms. Hartwell’s photographs showed the pilots in what appeared to be a damaged cockpit. “It just appeared to crumple up,” she wrote. “Luckily they appeared to walk away uninjured.”

從哈特韋爾發佈的其中一張照片看，飛行員所在的駕駛艙似乎有損傷。“它就好像被壓癟了，”她寫道。“幸運的是，他們好像沒有受傷。”

The Airlander 10 was initially a project developed for the United States military, and Hybrid Air Vehicles has said the airship could stay airborne for up to five days at a time with someone on board and for two weeks when flown remotely.

“天空登陸者10號”最初是爲美國軍方研發的一個項目。混合動力飛行器公司曾表示，在載人的情況下，這艘飛艇一次可以在空中停留五天，遙控飛行則可以持續兩週。