Swiss team claims first freefall jump from solar plane

Swiss adventurer Raphael Domjan jumps from the SolarStratos solar powered aircraft (Laurent Gillieron/Keystone via AP)

A Swiss team working to take a solar-powered plane to the edge of space says it has performed the first jump and freefall from an electric aircraft.

The SolarStratos team said its experimental plane took off from an airfield in western Switzerland with two people on board early on Tuesday and climbed to 5,000 feet before its founder, Raphael Domjan, jumped out of the aircraft.