“It was harder than I expected,” Zara Rutherford, a teen pilot, said on Thursday after completing a solo, round-the-world flight to set a new world record.
Trip across nearly 30 countries
The 19-year-old landed in front of a mob of journalists, well-wishers, and family at an airstrip near the Belgian town of Kortrijk, claiming to be the world’s youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe alone in a cockpit.
She left on August 18, 2021, just over five months ago.
According to reports, “It’s strange to be back here,” she said during a press conference, adding that she was looking forward to resting her feet up for a while in just one area after an incredible tour that included stops in nearly 30 countries.
“Next week, I’d prefer to do nothing,” she joked.
Sharing her experience
Rutherford, a dual citizen of Belgium and the United Kingdom, answered questions in English, French, and Dutch. Her parents are both pilots, and her father served in the Royal Air Force.
“I’d be driving hundreds of kilometers without seeing anything human — no electricity cables, no roads, no people — and I’d think to myself, ‘If the engine stopped now, I’d have a really huge problem,'” she explained.
She had to avoid clouds and couldn’t fly at night while navigating the world in a 325-kilogram (717-pound) Shark UL single-propeller plane that was given to her under a sponsorship contract.
Restrictions during her travel
Because of the restrictions, she had to divert or make emergency landings many times, including taking to the ground early this month, just a short distance from Dubai, to escape being caught in the city’s first thunderstorm in two years.
She also spent most of November in Ayan, a Russian eastern coastal town, where she was unable to leave due to bad weather, relying on friendly people who were “quite prepared to help with everything I might need.”
