Channel flight: 100 years on, pilot late

BLERIOT-PLAGE, France: One hundred years to the day after Louis Bleriot claimed his place in aviation history, a restored original of his plane successfully crossed the Channel from France to England on Saturday.

Complete with a flowing 20th century white flier's scarf, leather aviator cap and goggles, French pilot Edmond Salis set off from Les Barraques near Calais - since renamed Bleriot-Plage, or beach - in a 1934 cloth and wood monoplane mounted on bicycle wheels.

Identical to the one flown by Bleriot on July 25, 1909, Salis took off amid the cacophony of its hand-cranked single-engine propeller around 9 am (about 3 pm Beijing time) with a life vest strapped to his back.