19-YEAR-OLD ZARA RUTHERFORD BECOMES YOUNGEST WOMAN TO FLY SOLO AROUND WORLD

Fri 21 January 2022:

Is there a certain age at which you can achieve great things in life? No. The best example of this is a Belgian-British teenager who has an inspirational story to tell.

Zara Rutherford, 19, has become the world’s youngest woman to fly solo around the globe.

The 19-year-old touched down at an airfield outside the Belgian town of Kortrijk to a crowd of journalists, well-wishers and family, laying claim to being the youngest woman to have circumnavigated the globe alone in a cockpit.

She set off, just over five months ago, on 18 August, 2021.

“It’s very strange being back here,” she told a media conference, adding that, after an epic journey with stops in nearly 30 countries, she was looking forward to putting her feet up for a while in just one place.

“I’d like to do nothing next week” she laughed.

Rutherford, who has Belgian and British nationality, fielded questions in English, French and Dutch. Both her parents are pilots, and her father flew for Britain’s air force.

“I’d be going hundreds and hundreds of kilometres without seeing anything human — I mean no electricity cables, no roads, no people — and I thought ‘if the engine stopped now I’d have a really big problem’,” she said.

Navigating the world in a tiny, 325-kilogramme (717-pound) Shark UL single-propellor plane, loaned to her under a sponsorship deal, meant she had to skirt around clouds and could not fly at night.

Rutherford said there were several “amazing moments”, but also times when she feared for her life. “I’d say the hardest part was flying over Siberia, because it was just extremely cold. It was minus 35 degrees on the ground … If the engine were then to stop, I’m hours away from rescue and I don’t know how long I could survive,” Rutherford added.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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