Sibling pilot record breakers join adventurers’ hall of fame

Zara and Mack Rutherford are youngest winners of prestigious award for round-the-world exploits

SIBLING pilots who both broke roundthe-world flying records have become the youngest ever winners of a prestigious adventurer award.

Zara and Mack Rutherford last year made it into the record books after completing the feats within just months of each other.

In August, Mack became the youngest person to fly around the world solo at the age of 17, completing it in 142 days – 13 days faster than his sister, who at 19 became the youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe solo.

They had both flown a Shark – a highperformance ultralight aircraft with a cruising speed of up to 186mph – on their daring voyages and both had been delayed by unpredictable challenges along the way.

Zara’s trip took five months, with bad weather causing delays in Alaska and Russia, while Mack had to surmount the obstacle of avoiding Russian airspace after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

Now, the British-Belgian siblings have been jointly recognised for their derring-do by receiving the Royal Automobile

Club’s Segrave Trophy, awarded to British nationals who demonstrate outstanding “skill, courage and initiative on land, water and in the air”.

It began in 1930 named after Sir Henry Segrave, who was the first person to hold both the land and water speed records at once.

Those awarded the trophy in the past include Formula 1 driver Sir Lewis Hamilton; Amy Johnson, the pioneering female aviator; and Peter Twiss, the British test pilot, for setting a new air speed record.

Zara, now 21, told that she and her brother were delighted to have been recognised, but added that it was “surreal looking at the history of the trophy and the past winners”.

She felt she had been following in the footsteps of her inspiration, Johnson, and hoped her own feat would encourage other women to take to the skies.

She said: “It’s such an honour. I wouldn’t compare what I did to what she did but it’s just nice to be looking back at those previous winners, to fit with them.”

Mack, now 18, was inspired by Twiss, who attended Sherborne School in Dorset, where Mack himself studied.

He said: “My message was to try to get young people to follow their dreams whether in aviation or anything else.”

He is now headed to California this September, where his sister is already studying engineering.

Zara and Mark Rutherford – youngest ever winners of the prestigious Segrave Trophy – pose with their Shark plane at the Epsom golf course in Surrey