Zara Rutherford touched down in western Belgium in her one-seater plane after flying solo around the world in 155 days.
The 19-year-old Belgian-British pilot Zara Rutherford set a world record as the youngest woman to fly solo around the world, touching her small airplane down in western Belgium on Thursday — 155 days after she departed.
Belgian-British teenage pilot Zara Rutherford aboard her Shark ultralight after landing at the end of her solo round-the-world trip.One time, her one-seater Shark microlight plane filled up with the stench of California wildfires. Often she was flying in absolute solitude over seas or desolate land, any potential rescue hours away. She had to spend weeks isolated in the tiny Siberian village of Ayan with barely any contact with her family or the world she knows.
Her global flight was supposed to take three months, but relentless bad weather and visa issues kept her grounded sometimes for weeks on end, extending her adventure by about two months. In her trek of more than 52,000 kilometers , she stopped over in five continents and visited 41 nations.