Zara Rutherford, 19, carries Belgian and British flags on the tarmac after landing her Shark ultralight jet at Kortrijk Airport in Belgium, on Thursday after completing a record-breaking single lap.
Geert Vanden Wijngaert / AP
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Geert Vanden Wijngaert / AP
Zara Rutherford, 19, carries Belgian and British flags on the tarmac after landing her Shark ultralight jet at Kortrijk Airport in Belgium, on Thursday after completing a record-breaking single lap.
Geert Vanden Wijngaert / AP
19-year-old pilot Zara Rutherford landed at an airport in western Belgium on Thursday, becoming the youngest woman to fly solo around the world, as she closes within five months of taking off in flight. breaking his own record.
Rutherford’s round trip on her Shark UL plane took 155 days – two months longer than planned, due to bad weather and visa holding. Along the way, she crossed huge stretches of desolate oceans and had to live for weeks in a tiny village in Siberia. She also had to change course to avoid North Korean airspace and the California wildfires.
And, of course, she recorded it all on social media.
YouTube
She told reporters after landing in Kortrijk: “It’s really crazy, I still can’t handle it.
Since departing August 18, Rutherford has traveled 28,000 nautical miles, stopping in 41 countries and five continents. It was a journey that landed her in the Guinness Book of World Records, replacing US pilot Shaesta Waiz, who set the previous record in 2017 at the age of 30. Last year, UK’s Travis Ludlow set the record. Youngest pilot to circumnavigate alone – 18 years old.
For anyone contemplating a similar adventure, Rutherford, who was met after landing by her Belgian mother and British father – both pilots – had some simple but direct advice : “Please continue.”
“It took a lot of time, a lot of patience, a lot of work, but it was unbelievable,” she said.
Celebrate with two weeks of sleep
Her brother was also there to meet her. And her mother, Beatrice, says the family will celebrate together, at least first. “I think Zara wants to celebrate by sleeping for about two weeks,” she added.
Rutherford said she sometimes fears for her life, and other times just wants to be at home with her family.
Speaking to NPR from near Prague on Tuesday shortly before her final leg, Rutherford said she’s “really delighted” to have finally completed the journey. “It’s been a long year – really hard. I’m looking forward to seeing my family again,” she said.
Rutherford applied Intuitive Flight Rules throughout the course, meaning weather and visibility were the limiting factors.
She told NPR that sudden clouds and thunderstorms near the equator are annoying. “In Singapore, I was pretty close to a lightning strike,” she said, adding that she also faced “severe turbulence” in Alaska and Bulgaria.
Suddenly flying over the California wildfire
One of the things she didn’t expect was the California wildfires. “I was flying along and then the smoke got really bad,” she told NPR. “I was at 10,000 feet at this point, just tried to climb it, but it didn’t work out.”
“At one point, I couldn’t see anymore,” she said. “It was really chaotic.”
But at least there are a lot of good memories, she told NPR. For example Siberia. “It’s so far away and I’ll probably never get the chance to see it again in my life,” she said.
“Alaska is great too. Taiwan is also beautiful. Another highlight is Saudi Arabia, I mean, the scenery is beautiful. Really nice people too,” she said.
Rutherford said that growing up, she rarely met women in aeronautics and computer engineering. Her next mission is to change that.
“Basically my dream is that in the future, if a girl wants to get into aviation or wants to go engineering, it’s not special,” she said. “It’s like, ‘oh, cool, like, just another person doing a great thing with their life.” But it doesn’t matter what gender they are. “
