Six months, five continents (大洲), forty-one countries, fifty-two thousand kilometers. At 19, Zara Rutherford has broken two Guinness World Records. She became the youngest female (女性) to fly alone around the world and the first woman to do so in a microlight aircraft (超轻型飞机).
The Belgian-British teenager landed in Belgium on Jan 20. "It's just really crazy," she told the news reporter.
With two pilot parents, Rutherford started learning to fly at 14 and got her first license in 2020. To realize her dream of flying around the world alone, she sold her car to pay for the trip. She also found some sponsors (赞助者). One of them is Shark Aero. The company provided her with a two-seat microlight.
In August 2021, when everything was ready, Rutherford set off. She planned to finish her trip in three months. Instead, it took nearly half a year because of bad weather and expired (过期的) travel documents (证件).
The most difficult part of the trip was flying over Russia's Siberia (西伯利亚) region. "It was -35℃ on the ground and -20℃ in the air. . . If the engines were to stop, I'd be hours away from rescue (救援) and I don't know how long I could have lived," Rutherford said. She also faced storms, wildfires, typhoons and broken parts of her aircraft.
Rutherford hopes her flight will encourage more girls to choose careers (职业) in aviation (航空业). "If you don't try and see how high you can fly, then you'll never know," Rutherford told the news reporter.
