19-year-old lands in Belgium, becoming youngest woman to fly solo around the world

zara rutherford pilot
Zara Rutherford, 19, carries the Belgian and British flags on the tarmac after landing her Shark ultralight plane at the Kortrijk airport in Belgium, on Thursday at the completion of a record-breaking solo circumnavigation. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP)

Nineteen-year-old pilot Zara Rutherford touched down at an airfield in western Belgium on Thursday, becoming the youngest woman to fly solo around the world, as she closed the loop five months after taking off on her record-breaking journey.

Rutherford’s circumnavigation aboard her Shark UL plane took 155 days – two months longer than planned, thanks to loads of bad weather and visa holdups. Along the way, she crossed enormous stretches of desolate ocean and had to spend weeks in a tiny Siberian village. She also had to alter course to avoid North Korean airspace and wildfires in California.

And, of course, she chronicled it all on social media.