This Belgian-British teenager aged just 19 has become the youngest woman ever to fly around the world solo today.

Zara Rutherford, 19, has landed at Flanders International Airport in Belgium, bringing her five-month trip around the world to a close. She was greeted by her family and the press, as well as fans.

Rutherford, who used to attend St Swithun’s School in the UK city of Winchester, had landed at Frankfurt Egelsbach Airport in the town of Egelsbach, near the city of Frankfurt, in the German state of Hesse, on Wednesday afternoon (19th January).

Now, after flying from Germany to her home country Belgium, she has become the youngest woman to fly around the world solo, having landed in the city of Kortrijk, in the Flemish province of West Flanders, in Belgium, which is where she began her epic odyssey on 18th August 2021.

The ambitious young woman is hoping her feat will be validated and break a Guinness World Record, making her the youngest woman to fly around the world solo. The current record holder is American aviator Shaesta Waiz, 35, who flew around planet Earth solo at the age of 30, back in 2017.

Rutherford’s epic voyage did not go as planned, with the 19-year-old woman initially planning to be back home in Belgium after just three months.

But her record attempt ended up taking five months, with delays caused by immigration issues and bad weather.

Rutherford left Belgium on 18th August last year and set out to cross the Atlantic. After stopovers in Iceland and Greenland, she reached Canada and from there she flew on to the East Coast of the USA before heading further south to Colombia and then to the western coast of the USA and Alaska.

After that, she crossed the dangerous Bering Sea to Russia before heading onto Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia. She then flew to India and eventually reached Hungary after flying over the Middle East.

Rutherford is completed her journey in her Shark Aero, a high-performance, two-seat ultralight, single-engine aircraft, after financing the trip with the help of sponsors and her own savings.