A British-Belgian teenager turned the youngest lady to fly solo across the globe on Thursday (January 20) and the primary individual to take action in a microlight airplane after a five-month, five-continent odyssey in her Shark ultralight.
Nineteen-year-old Zara Rutherford landed again at Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport in Belgium after flying 51,000 km (32,000 miles) over 52 nations since her Aug. 18 departure on the earth’s quickest microlight plane.
Cheers and applause went up as her airplane got here to a halt on the tarmac.
“It’s simply actually loopy, I haven’t fairly processed it,” Rutherford, smiling broadly and cloaked in British and Belgian flags, instructed reporters.
To fulfill standards for a round-the-world flight, Rutherford touched two factors reverse one another on the globe: Jambi in Indonesia and Tumaco in Colombia.
{The teenager} mentioned the final leg of her journey, from Germany, had been difficult as a result of rain and snow meant she needed to “wiggle in some valleys” popping out of Frankfurt, however was delighted to be accompanied by mild plane of the Belgian Air Pressure’s Crimson Devils aerobatic show group for the ultimate stretch.
Having gained her pilot’s licence in 2020 after coaching along with her father since 14, she now desires to review engineering at a U.S. or British college from September.
Rutherford desires of being an astronaut and hopes her voyage will encourage girls in science, know-how and aviation, in response to her web site.