A "contact accident" involving a XPeng Aeroht aircraft casts a shadow over the low-altitude economy.

The dual-aircraft test flight formation of XPeng HT Aero

On September 16, two XPeng HT Aero eVTOLs (Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft) collided during a rehearsal at the Changchun Air Show. Thick smoke billowed at the scene, and it was suspected that a fire had broken out.

Shortly after the accident, XPeng HT Aero released a brief statement: This afternoon (September 16), after the rehearsal of the Changchun Air Show, two aircraft participating in the dual-aircraft formation drill came into contact due to insufficient flight spacing. One aircraft landed normally, while the other suffered body damage and caught fire during landing. The on-site personnel are safe, and the relevant departments have completed the on-site disposal work in an orderly manner. The specific cause is under further investigation.

This accident has cast a shadow over XPeng HT Aero, which is aiming for mass production and delivery in 2026, and the rapidly rising low-altitude economy industry.

The predecessor of the Changchun Air Show was the Air Force Aviation Open Event, which started in 2011. After being held continuously for seven years, starting from 2019, the Changchun Air Show has been held concurrently with the Air Force Aviation Open Event. Including 2022 and 2023, it has been held for a total of three sessions, attracting more than 1.85 million on-site visitors in total. It is one of the largest aviation exhibitions in China. The fourth Changchun Air Show started officially on September 19, 2025.

XPeng HT Aero is one of the most representative startups in the low-altitude economy. It was established in 2020, with its predecessor being Dongguan HT Aero, founded by Zhao Deli, the current president of XPeng HT Aero, in 2013. In 2020, He Xiaopeng, the chairman of XPeng Motors, and XPeng Motors jointly invested to control Dongguan HT Aero and established Guangdong HT Aero Technology Co., Ltd. (also known as "XPeng HT Aero"), an ecological enterprise of XPeng Motors.

After two product iterations, XPeng HT Aero's main products can be divided into the "Land Aircraft Carrier" split-type flying car, high-speed and long-range flying cars, and integrated flying cars. The "Land Aircraft Carrier" split-type flying car, which is closest to the mass production and delivery target, made its debut at XPeng Motors' "1024 Technology Day" in 2023.

The "Land Aircraft Carrier" split-type flying car features a decoupled design of the aircraft and the vehicle carrier. XPeng HT Aero has developed an on-board automatic separation and combination mechanism, which supports one-key operation to achieve the automatic separation and combination of the aircraft and the vehicle carrier. The vehicle carrier is a six-wheel vehicle that uses an 800V high-voltage silicon carbide extended-range power platform and can provide high-power energy replenishment for the aircraft. The aircraft can take off and land vertically, adopting a six-rotor dual-duct configuration design. The blades and the arms can be folded to fit into the vehicle carrier.

At the 15th China (Zhuhai) Airshow in November 2024, XPeng HT Aero announced that it had received 2,008 orders from 12 batch-ordering customers from different industries across the country. As of now, XPeng HT Aero has received nearly 5,000 pre-orders. To achieve the goal of mass production and delivery in 2026, the XPeng HT Aero Flying Car Manufacturing Base broke ground in October 2024, with a designed annual production capacity of 10,000 units and using an assembly line for production.

On the wall of XPeng HT Aero's headquarters, it clearly states "The largest flying car company in Asia" - with a total of more than 1,400 employees, over 80% of whom are R & D personnel. The number of pre-orders leads the industry, and it completed a $250 million financing in the past year. The expected investment this year will reach 3 billion yuan.

As planned, XPeng HT Aero hopes to complete the certification of the Type Certificate (TC) for the flying body (code name: X3 - F) within this year. The Type Certificate is issued by the Civil Aviation Administration to confirm that the aircraft design meets the airworthiness standards. This is the first of the three airworthiness certificates (TC, PC, AC) and is a key link in the airworthiness certification of civil aircraft. In addition, XPeng HT Aero also needs a Production Certificate (PC) and an Aircraft Certificate (AC). The application for the PC has been accepted by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Currently, including XPeng HT Aero, many eVTOL companies such as Huayu Xianxiang and Wanfeng Auto Holding plan to complete the certification of the Type Certificate (TC) within this year and achieve commercialization goals in 2026.

A civil aviation industry insider working for a large airline said that there is still no final investigation result for this accident, but it is likely to affect XPeng HT Aero's eVTOL delivery target. Judging from the preliminary situation of the accident announced by XPeng HT Aero - the contact between the two aircraft in the dual-aircraft formation drill due to insufficient flight spacing is a relatively serious aviation accident.

The civil aviation industry has strict regulations on flight spacing. According to the explanation of air traffic flight interval safety on the official website of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, when an aircraft is flying in the air, there must be a certain interval distance from other objects in the up - down, front - back, and left - right directions. The up - down interval is called the altitude interval. The internationally used altitude interval is that below 6,000 meters, each 300 - meter interval is a flight level, and above 6,000 meters, each 600 - meter interval is a flight level.

An aircraft must also have an appropriate interval distance from other objects in the front - back and left - right directions. Generally speaking, a flying aircraft needs to have a 20 - kilometer - wide interval in its front, back, left, and right to ensure flight safety. Therefore, the width of the airway is stipulated to be 40 kilometers.

In actual situations, for the longitudinal interval between aircraft in the front - back direction, since the speeds of aircraft vary greatly, it is difficult to measure the distance under procedural control. Therefore, time is used for control. Under normal circumstances, there should be a time interval of more than 10 minutes between two aircraft.

According to the description of a witness, one of the aircraft suddenly deviated from the preset route while hovering at a low altitude and collided violently with another aircraft that was landing. The debris of the aircraft was scattered all over the place, and the fire spread rapidly after it caught fire. The witness reported that there was windy weather at the time of the accident. He guessed that it might be the windy weather that caused one of the aircraft to lose control. The leaked accident scene photos and videos confirmed the witness's statement about the weather.

"Currently, it is still impossible to determine whether the insufficient flight spacing of XPeng HT Aero's two aircraft is due to insufficient altitude interval or longitudinal interval. Nor can we determine whether it is due to weather conditions, human error, or system failure," said the civil aviation industry insider.

In the civil aviation industry, in addition to control instructions, the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) is usually relied on to prevent aircraft from colliding with each other in the air. XPeng HT Aero's past promotional information did not mention the Traffic Collision Avoidance System, but emphasized the safety capabilities of XPeng HT Aero's aircraft, such as multi - dimensional intelligent perception and obstacle avoidance functions.

According to XPeng HT Aero's previous promotional information, XPeng HT Aero's aircraft features simple and easy - to - learn operation. It is equipped with a large - size touch screen and an advanced single - stick control system on the center console. "Users can easily get started in just five minutes and become experts in the field of flight in three hours." In the autonomous driving mode, one - key operation can complete takeoff, landing, and route planning. At the same time, it has multi - dimensional intelligent perception and obstacle avoidance functions to ensure flight safety.

If the automatic flight mode is adopted, the pilot still has the priority to control the aircraft and can take over at any time through the control stick. XPeng HT Aero also clarifies that whether it is manual driving or automatic flight, the intelligent flight control system will provide intelligent attitude protection throughout the process to keep the flight attitude within the safe range.

On its official website, XPeng HT Aero emphasizes that the intelligent flight control and navigation system uses triple - redundant heterogeneous redundancy. Through different hardware and software structures, it reduces the possibility that a single failure mode affects the operation of the entire system, thereby improving the overall safety.

After the accident, some interviewees directly said that they would refuse to take eVTOLs, although eVTOLs are still far from realizing passenger - carrying flights. "I'm already terrified when a civil airliner encounters air turbulence, let alone such a small aircraft."

This accident has not only hit XPeng HT Aero, which is in a critical period of financing and aiming for mass production and delivery, but also raised public doubts about the safety of eVTOLs, casting a shadow over the rising low - altitude economy industry. However, from another perspective, this accident also reminds low - altitude economy companies to pay more attention to the upgrade of safety functions before carrying out passenger - carrying flights of eVTOLs.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Power Plant", author: Hua Zijian. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.