Teen aviator hopes to inspire others by setting global record
BRUSSELS — Avoid typhoon in the Philippines. Check.
Steer clear of massive California wildfires. Check.
Keep away from test missiles in North Korea. What? Wait.
As teenage pilot Zara Rutherford flew ever onward in a record-challenging global odyssey, she met little as strange or scary as when she tried to squeeze in between North Korean airspace and a massive cloud threatening to cut off passage for her ultralight plane.
“Well, they test missiles once in a while without warning,” Rutherford said. More importantly, she was just 15 minutes from flying over one of the last places one should enter uninvited.
So she radioed her control team to ask if she could cut the corner over the isolationist communist dictatorship to get to Seoul. “Straight away they said: ‘Whatever you do, do not go into North Korean airspace!’ ” Fortunately the clouds cooperated enough and she didn’t have to continue the crash course in applied geopolitics.
At the age of 19, she is set to land her singleseater Shark sport aircraft in Kortrijk, Belgium, on Monday, more than 150 days after setting out from there to become the youngest woman to circumnavigate the world solo. U.S. aviator Shaesta Waiz was 30 when she set the previous benchmark.
Flying runs in Rutherford’s blood since both her parents are pilots and she has been traveling in small planes since she was 6. At 14, she started flying herself and about 130 hours of solo flights prepped her for the record attempt, which she hopes will also have a bigger meaning.
With the final touchdown
in a plane that looks like a fly among the giants parked at an airport like New York’s JFK, the Belgian-British teenager wants to infuse young women and girls worldwide with the spirit of aviation — and an enthusiasm for studies in the exact sciences, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Two mathematical statistics stand out for her — only 5% of commercial pilots and 15% of computer scientists are women.
“The gender gap is huge,” she said.
Yet once the canopy closed over her cockpit and another six- to eight-hour flight began, lofty thoughts of global outreach receded as she concentrated on one lonely individual — herself.
Using Visual Flight Rules, basically going on sight only, danger lurked even closer than when she would be able to use fancy navigational instruments to lead her through the night, clouds or fog.
Crossing northern California from Palo Alto towards Seattle, she headed into the huge wildfires blighting the area. The higher she climbed to avoid the smoke — up to 10,000 feet — the tougher it was to keep her eyes on the ground.
“The smoke was building up and up, to the point
that the whole cabin stank of smoke and I could not see anything but a burnished orange color,” Rutherford said. She had to abort her route and make an unscheduled landing in Redding, California.
Over Siberia, the light played tricks on her vision, sometimes casting doubt whether she saw mountains or clouds. “And for me clouds are a really big deal. Especially in Russia,” with its biting cold. Cutting through such clouds, too much ice might build up on her wings, paralyzing control. “At that point your plane is no longer a plane,” she said.
That, or any other mishap, could have happened on a section of the route where she once saw only one village in six hours.
The project would have been tough enough in normal times, but the pandemic added another complication — which indirectly led to the North Korean adventure.
Alternative plans to go over China to Seoul were ditched when the Chinese government refused permission citing COVID19, which, Rutherford said, “was slightly frustrating because I’m in the plane at 6,000 feet. I’d be very impressed if I could pass on COVID like this.”