The revolutionary Solar Impulse 2 aircraft took off early Monday for a flight over the Pacific Ocean, a spokeswoman said, the most ambitious leg of its quest to circumnavigate the globe powered only by the sun.

Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg, 62, left the ground in Nagoya, in central Japan, around 3:00 am local time (1800 GMT), five days after weather problems forced the organisers to cancel an earlier attempt to reach Hawaii.