London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Sep 17, 2025

Belgian-Briton Zara Rutherford is youngest woman to fly solo around world

Nineteen-year-old completes 52,000km journey that took in 31 countries and five continents
A Belgian-British teenager has flown into the record books by becoming the youngest woman to fly solo around the world.

Zara Rutherford, 19, touched down at Kortrijk-Wevelgem airport in Flanders just after 1pm local time on Thursday, completing a 52,000km (28,100 nautical mile) journey that took in 31 countries across five continents.

“It’s just really crazy. I haven’t quite processed it,” Rutherford, draped in British and Belgian flags, told reporters.

She said there had been “amazing moments”, but also times when she had 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.”

Making a smooth landing on the runway, she became the first woman to fly alone around the world in a microlight plane and the first Belgian to circumnavigate the globe solo by air. Rutherford’s parents are pilots and started taking her up in small planes when she was a toddler. By the age of 14 she was learning to fly and dreaming of a round-the-world trip.

“The dream was really to fly around the world. But I always thought it was impossible: it’s expensive, dangerous, complicated, a logistical nightmare,” she said in a TV interview earlier this month. “So I never really thought about it twice. And then I was finishing school and I thought: if I am going to do something crazy with my life this is the perfect time to do it.”

On 18 August last year she took off in her two-seater Shark Aero, one of the fastest lightweight aircraft in the world, which can reach speeds of up to 300km/h. Flying west, she stopped in the UK, Greenland, the Americas and Russia, then looped down to south-east Asia, north to India, the Middle East and Egypt, and back to Europe.

Unable to fly at night or in clouds, Rutherford could only fly during clear daylight. She encountered all weathers, including conditions she had never been trained to deal with in temperate Belgium. There were freezing temperatures in Greenland, Alaska and Russia, desert haze in Saudi Arabia, thunderstorms at the equator, wildfires over California and smog over India that reduced visibility.

Russia was her toughest challenge but also one of the highlights. “One of the most impressive moments was flying over Siberia, because it is just so remote and I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see it again,” she said. Saudi Arabia also stood out as “really beautiful, very diverse and the weather was great”.

A snowstorm grounded her in the north-eastern Russian city of Magadan for a week. Extreme weather also forced a three-week stay in Ayan, a small town of 800 people in the country’s far east, with few English speakers and no wifi. Locals were “very kind and willing to help”, she said.

Rutherford also had to navigate fast-changing Covid restrictions and bureaucracy. She cancelled a stop in China after a government change of rules meant she would have had to quarantine.

This became one of the scariest moments of the trip, when she had to navigate one of the busiest aviation routes in the world to reach South Korea while avoiding Chinese and North Korean airspace.

Her journey from Mumbai to Dubai was a gruelling eight-hour flight mostly over water, ending with a diversion to another airport 60 miles south of the Emirati city because of a rare storm.

Then there were routine chores. Christmas Day in Singapore was spent dealing with a flat tyre. When she was stuck in Alaska waiting for her Russian visa, she worked on plane maintenance and applying to universities.

Now back in Belgium, she plans to study electrical engineering and hopes to become an astronaut. The teenager, who cites her inspirations as the American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and the Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, said she hoped her journey would encourage more girls to take up science and engineering.

“Growing up I didn’t really see many female pilots or female computer scientists,” she has said. “Those are two of my passions and it’s quite discouraging when there is no one that you can relate to that does any of those things.”

She said she hoped “other girls see me and think: ‘I’d love to fly one day, too.’”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
The German Owner of Politico Mathias Döpfner Eyes Further U.S. Media Expansion After Axel Springer Restructuring
Suspect Arrested: Utah Man in Custody for Charlie Kirk’s Fatal Shooting
In a politically motivated trial: Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years for Plotting Coup After 2022 Defeat
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
ChatGPT CEO signals policy to alert authorities over suicidal youth after teen’s death
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
Effective Protest Results: Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns as Youth-Led Unrest Shakes the Nation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
King Charles and Prince Harry Share First In-Person Moment in 19 Months
×