Flying car crashes in Canada

Two people were injured following a flying car crash in Canada, after an experimental vehicle flew into a tree near a school in Vernon, British Colombia.

“It looked like it was on its approach. There was motor sound and people looked up and it got into trouble and came through the fence and into the trees here,” says Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesperson Gord Molendyk.

According to Canada’s CBC, the experimental vehicle involved in the crash was an I-TEC Maverick, which features a plane engine, propeller and parasail attached to a dune buggy.

The vehicle was built by a Florida-based company called Beyond Roads, based on a design from the Indigenous Peoples’ Technology and Education Center in Florida, which claims the $US94,000 vehicles designed for ‘frontier regions’, despite needing a 100 metre runway for take-off and landing .

“The Maverick LSA design has been developed as an easy-to-operate – air, land, and snow craft. It is intuitive and safe to fly, drive and maintain by people in frontier areas of the world enabling them to use this unique vehicle in missions and humanitarian applications – in the world beyond roads,” I-TEC claims on its website.

Over the decades, a number of companies have developed and even sold roadable aircraft, otherwise known as ‘flying cars’. Some notable examples have included the Taylor Aerocar in the 1940s, the Autogiro in the 1930s and 1960s, the AVE Mizar in the 1970s and, more recently, the Terrafugia Transition.

Unfortunately, despite some limited attempts to commercialise the flying car concept, none have taken off commercially.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is investigating the crash.