Singapore thunderstorm was scariest thing on round-the world flight, says teen pilot
She may be a daredevil pilot but hey, a Singapore thunderstorm can be scary.
British-Belgian teenager Zara Rutherford had just become the youngest woman to fly solo around the globe and the first person to do so in a microlight plane.
Ms Rutherford, 19, landed back at Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport in Belgium on Thursday (Jan 20) after flying 51,000km over 52 nations since her Aug 18 departure.
There were cheers as her plane came to a halt on the tarmac.
"It's just really crazy, I haven't quite processed it," she said, smiling broadly, cloaked in British and Belgian flags.
A reporter later asked what the scariest moment of her five-month odyssey was.
"I got pretty close to a thunderstorm in Singapore," Ms Rutherford said.
"Suddenly there was a lightning strike and that was pretty scary..."
Otherwise the mental challenges were mostly over Siberia, she told the BBC. That meant vast stretches with "nothing human" below. If she were to go down, she would be hours from rescue in temperatures of around minus 35 deg C.
She said it was an exploit she would never repeat. "There's been amazing moments, but then there's been moments where I had fear for my life," she added.
She picked New York and an active volcano in Iceland as her favourite sights from the air.
Ms Rutherford was stuck for a month in Alaska because of weather and visa delays. A winter storm forced another long stop in far eastern Russia, before she travelled to South Asia, the Middle East and back to Europe.
To meet criteria for a round-the-world flight, Ms Rutherford touched two points opposite each other on the globe: Jambi in Indonesia and Tumaco in Colombia.
She took the record from Afghan-born American Shaesta Wais, who was 30 when she made her flight in 2017. The youngest male record holder, American Mason Andrews, was 18 when he did it in 2018.
Ms Rutherford said the last leg of her journey, from Germany, had been tricky because rain and snow meant she had to "wiggle in some valleys" coming out of Frankfurt, but she was delighted to be accompanied by light aircraft of the Belgian Air Force's Red Devils aerobatic display team for the final stretch.
Switching between French, Dutch and English as reporters fired questions, Ms Rutherford said she was looking forward to spending time with her family and seeing her cats again.
Having gained her pilot's licence in 2020 after training with her father since 14, she now wants to study engineering at a US or British university, from September.
Ms Rutherford dreams of being an astronaut and hopes her voyage will encourage women in science, technology and aviation.
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now
