A fire broke out during ground testing of Eviation’s all-electric Alice aircraft on January 22 at Prescott Regional Airport in Arizona. The company said that the fire is believed to have been caused by a fault with a ground-based battery system. It has yet to confirm how extensively the prototype aircraft might have been damaged in the incident.
The Prescott Fire Department was on standby for the planned test and quickly extinguished the fire, which caused no injuries. Eviation has begun an investigation into the full cause of the fire and has not said how the incident might affect plans to begin flight testing the aircraft.
Israel-based Eviation is aiming to complete type certification for the fixed-wing Alice before the end of 2022 under the FAA’s Part 23 rules. The first prototype arrived in Prescott in late 2019, having been shipped from Vannes, France, where it was assembled at facilities owned by composite fuselage supplier Carboman Group.