A British/Belgian pilot has become the youngest person to fly solo around the world and has broken two Guinness World Records to boot.

Mack Rutherford took off from Sofia in Bulgaria, the hometown of his main sponsor ICDSoft, on 23 March 2022. He was 16 years old at the time and was following in the footsteps of his sister Zara who had become the youngest woman to fly around the world solo two months before.

On 24 August he returned to the same airfield in the Bulgarian capital in his Shark UL, having landed in 30 countries across four continents, covering a distance of 54 124km (29 225nm) and crossing two antipodal points in Mauritius and Mexico.

Fact sheet about Mack’s journey

• World records broken: the youngest person to fly solo around the world, the youngest person to fly solo around the world in a microlight aircraft
• Age at time of record: 17 years, 2 months and 2 days/current record holder, Travis Ludlow: 18 years and 5 months (150 days) – Mack breaks the record by approx 1 year and 3 months
• Total distance: 29225nm (54124km)
• Total time in the air: 221 hours
• Total time of circumnavigation: 142 days – 5 months and 1 day / Zara his sister did it in 5 months and 2 days
• Takeoffs/landings: 68
• Longest flight: 10 hours Japan-USA
• Longest flight over water: 10 hours Japan-USA
• Highest altitude: 12500ft Mexico
• Continents visited: 4
• Countries visited: 30
• Highest temperature: +48C
• Lowest temperature: -12C