19-year-old pilot Zara Rutherford is trying to become the youngest woman to fly around the world solo
- The Belgian-British teen, who is the daughter of two pilots, says Greenland has been her favourite stop so far and that podcasts help her flight around the globe feel less lonely
- Shaesta Waiz, the first female certified civilian pilot born in Afghanistan, currently holds the Guinness World Record for solo female circumnavigation and has been supportive of Rutherford
British-Belgian 19-year-old Zara Rutherford before taking off for a record attempt to become the youngest woman ever to fly solo around the world in a small plane. Photo: DPANineteen-year-old Zara Rutherford was born to fly.
The Belgian-British teen is the daughter of two pilots, so when she announced that she wanted to fly a tiny two-seat plane around the world alone, her parents were fully on board.
“I always thought it would be too unrealistic – it was impossible. It was complex, it was expensive,” she told USA Today.
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“Then I figured ... wouldn’t it be better to start when I’m younger rather than older, because then you get caught up in life and careers and jobs, and I didn’t know if I would ever have an opportunity like this. I told my dad, ‘This is an idea I have, and what do you think?’
“Straightaway, he says, ‘Yes, we will find sponsorship, we’ll make it work.’”
They did make it work, because Rutherford is currently in the midst of her solo flight across the globe. If she completes it, she will be the youngest woman ever to do so. The record is currently held by Shaesta Waiz, who flew around the globe solo when she was 30 years old.
Waiz, who originally connected with Rutherford via a LinkedIn message, said she actively encouraged the young pilot to take down the record.
“I remember thinking, ‘I cannot be the youngest woman. I’m not that young,’” Waiz told USA Today. “Here comes Zara, and she’s just so ambitious and very smart. She reached out to me ... to say that she was going to do this. The first thing she asked me, she said, ‘Is it okay if I break your record?’ I was like, ‘Absolutely Zara. Records are meant to be broken.’”
Rutherford’s route began in her home nation, Belgium. She took off from an airport in Brussels on August 11 and has since made stops in the United Kingdom, Iceland, Greenland and Canada.
She is currently in New York City, where she has two rest days, and her next stop is the US state of North Carolina, where she will visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk. The Wright Brothers were important American pioneers of aviation.
The teen aviator flies for about five hours nearly every day, and the longest solo flight she had ever done before her world record attempt was about four and a half hours. Rutherford said she avoids eating or drinking much before she boards her plane so she does not need to use the bathroom while she is in the air.
“I say that, but on my flight from [Goose Bay, Canada] to Montreal, I had to make an emergency stop to go to the bathroom,” she laughed.
The long hours in the plane can get lonely, but Rutherford said she mostly listens to podcasts to pass the time. She said her favourite is 20-year-old YouTuber Emma Chamberlain’s podcast Anything Goes.
“Especially like over Greenland, you lose radio almost immediately, so it’s really quiet, she said. “If you get a podcast that’s just one person talking, then it feels like there’s someone there with you.”
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Rutherford said her favourite stop so far was in Kulusuk, Greenland because of the scenic landscape.
“I saw my very first whale, so that was amazing, and it’s such a stunning sight,” she said. “You know the wallpapers that come with a computer of beautiful scenery? If you take your phone out and snap literally any picture, it looks like that.”
In order for Guinness World Records to consider the trip truly “around the world,” Rutherford has to cross points that are directly on opposite sides of the globe from each other. On her route, those spots are just below the equator in the South American country of Columbia and just above the equator in Indonesia, a country in Southeast Asia. She also added nearly 8,047km (5,000 miles) to the trip so she would be able to visit more places.
Waiz said that while she did not directly help Rutherford plan her route, she did offer advice about weather and other challenges she might face during the journey.
“The weather can really turn on you at any time, so you really have to be just aware of what to expect in different parts of the world during the season,” she said.
“I told her, ‘Only you know if you should take off. Try not to let anything pressure you ... people can wait. At the end of the day, it’s you in that plane, so do whatever is best for you.”
Rutherford said her flights have been mostly smooth sailing so far, but she did have one stressful moment on her flight from Iceland to Greenland. The plane she is using cannot fly through clouds, and she hit an overcast system where the clouds forced her to lower her plane to just 183m (600 feet) high. She said she considered turning back, but the clouds eventually cleared up and she was able to continue to her next stop.
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Waiz believes Rutherford’s humility and intelligence give her a good chance to succeed on her record-breaking trip.
“If you have an ego going into it, it can really hurt you, so I think Zara being very humble is definitely going to help,” she said. “You just never know what Mother Nature’s going to do. I feel like she’s a pretty grounded person, and she has a really great intuition.”
Waiz is the founder and president of a non-profit organisation called Dreams Soar, which educates young girls around the world about aviation. Dreams Soar is one of Rutherford’s charity partners on her flight, and the teen will meet Waiz and local Women of Aviation chapter on her stop in Jacksonville, Florida in the United States.
Rutherford is projected to complete her trip on November 3, and though she said the three months remaining are a bit daunting, she is taking things one day at a time.
“It sounds like a lifetime, but actually, I’m really enjoying it,” she said, “I rarely think about it as a whole. It’s always one flying leg at a time. That way you kind of forget about the bigger picture.”