19-year-old becomes youngest woman to solo circumnavigate globe in microlight

Zara Rutherford landed her Shark ultralight at Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport in Belgium on a January morning in 2022, stepping out of the cockpit as the youngest woman ever to have flown solo around the world. The 19-year-old British-Belgian pilot had just completed a five-month journey across five continents, covering 51,000 kilometers and passing through 52 nations in an aircraft most people have never heard of. She was also the first person, of any age or gender, to accomplish a solo circumnavigation in a microlight—a category of plane so small and specialized that her achievement stood entirely alone in aviation history.

The journey had begun on August 18 in the world's fastest microlight aircraft, a machine built for speed and endurance but not comfort. Rutherford had touched down at Jambi in Indonesia and Tumaco in Colombia—two points opposite each other on the globe—to satisfy the technical requirements of a true round-the-world flight. The route took her across North and South America, through Asia, the Middle East, and back to Europe, a path that looked simple on a map but proved anything but simple in execution.

Weather and bureaucracy had conspired against her repeatedly. She spent an entire month grounded in Alaska, waiting for conditions to clear and visa paperwork to process. A winter storm forced another extended stop in far eastern Russia, the kind of delay that tests not just a pilot's skill but her resolve. When she reflected on the journey after the penultimate leg to a German village, her honesty was striking. "I wouldn't do it again," she said. The five months had delivered moments of genuine wonder—she spoke of flying over New York and an active volcano in Iceland as highlights—but also moments when fear for her life had been real and immediate.

Rutherford had broken the previous record held by Shaesta Wais, an Afghan-born American who became the youngest woman to fly solo around the world in 2017 at age 30. The male record belonged to American Mason Andrews, who was 18 when he completed the feat in 2018. With her landing in Belgium, Rutherford also became the first Belgian citizen to circumnavigate the world solo in a single-engine aircraft, a distinction that mattered deeply in her home country.

Her path to this moment had begun years earlier. She obtained her pilot's license in 2020 after training with her father since she was 14 years old—a partnership that had shaped both her skills and her ambition. Now, at 19, she was planning to study engineering at a university in the United States or Britain starting in September, with an eye toward a career in space exploration. She wanted to be an astronaut, and she believed her flight could serve a larger purpose beyond her own achievement.

On her website, Rutherford articulated what had driven her across five continents. She observed that boys encounter messages throughout their lives—in toys, street names, history lessons, and films—that they can become scientists, astronauts, CEOs, or presidents. Girls, she wrote, are often steered toward different virtues: beauty, kindness, helpfulness, sweetness. "With my flight I want to show young women that they can be bold, ambitious and make their dreams come true," she said. The circumnavigation was not just a personal victory; it was a statement about what she believed was possible for women in fields where they remained underrepresented. Her landing in Belgium marked the end of one journey and the beginning of another—one aimed at changing how young women saw themselves and their futures.