Belgian-British teenager Zara Rutherford lands in Korea on her solo world tour with the help of a KLM pilot she wants to thank

In August, we announced that a 19-year-old Belgian-British girl, Zara Rutherford, wanted to beat a world record by being the youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe alone on a sports plane, a record currently held by 30-year-old American Shaesta Wai. We also opened a forum topic devoted to her tentative.

Since her departure from Kortrijk-Wevelgem (Belgium) on 18 August, Zara has landed in a tremendous number of airports: Popham, Aberdeen, Wick (UK), Reykjavik (Iceland), Narsarsuaq (Greenland), Goose Bay, Montreal (Canada), New York JFK, Princeton, First Flight, Washington Warren, Jacksonville, Miami (USA), San Salvador (Bahamas), Providenciales (Turks & Caicos), Terrance (British Virgin Islands), Barranquilla, Los Campanos, Quibdo, Barranquilla again (Colombia), Panama City (Panama, Tapachula, Veracruz (Mexico), Albuquerque, Spaceport America, Las Cruces, Phoenix, Los Angeles SpaceX, Mojave Spaceport, Palo Alto, Redding, Seattle, Ketchikan, Juneau, Yakutat, Anchorage, Nome (USA), where she was delayed for one month by bad weather and Russian visa problems.

On 1 November, she was able to take off again, cross the Behring Strait and arrive in Anadyr and Magadan (Russia). After one week additional delay, departure to Ayan (Russia) and a new weather-related long delay. On 30 November, Zara took off to Khabarovsk and Vladivostok (Russia).

After a week there (the weather again!), she departed to Seoul Gimpo (South Korea) where she arrived safely with the assistance of a KLM pilot. Here is the story.

APPEAL FOR HELP TO FIND A PILOT!

On her World Record Attempt, Zara landed in South Korea on 11 December after a more than 6-hour long flight over the Sea of Japan. Just imagine. Flying this amount of time, all on your own, in a tiny single-engine plane over cold seawater, with no land in sight…

Since radio transmissions involve a transmitting and a receiving antenna, to function, they need to be what is called “in line of sight”. Being at only 7,000 feet (~2,300m) and far away from any landmass – her radios did not connect with any controllers for a long while because the curvature of the Earth over such long distances gets in the way…

About halfway into her flight and as soon as Zara heard a commercial airliner communicate overhead, she asked the crew for assistance in “relaying” her message to the air controllers and finding the appropriate frequencies she needed. The airliner helping her on 11 December was flight KLM 868 (a Boeing 777-200 registered PH-BQD flying from Osaka to Amsterdam) and it was around 23:50 Zulu time (UTC). The pilot was incredibly kind and helpful to her, without even knowing who she was and what she was doing there.