A helicopter pilot in Brazil appears to have successfully completed a re-enactment of the death-defying stunt from the 1996 Paramount Pictures movie Mission: Impossible in which a helicopter flies through a tunnel.
Tom Cruise's character Ethan Hawkes tethers a helicopter piloted by former colleague Franz Krieger (played by Jean Reno) onto a fictional French SNCF Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV) high speed train just before it enters the Channel Tunnel. The helicopter flies behind the train as it travels the 40km (26miles) linking the UK and the rest of Europe.
The film has been criticised for a lack or realism for portraying the chase sequence, which includes a near-miss with a train travelling in the opposite direction.
However, in a videoclip posted on popular media-sharing site youtube.com (below), a Brazilian Bell Helicopter 206B JetRanger helicopter (which appears to PT-HTC) makes a shorter journey, through a mountainside road tunnel of around 500m (460yd). In the video, set to Livin' on a Prayer by 1980s soft rock band Bon Jovi, oncoming cars can be seen in the distance.
In Mission: Impossible the helicopter fails to complete its journey through the tunnel, unlike in the youtube real-life video.
If anyone knows more about this stunt, where it was filmed, who the pilot was or how it was achieved, flightglobal.com would love to know more.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
