Fossett Sets Air Record Despite Emergency Landing

By Peter Graff

LONDON — Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett broke the record for long-distance flight without refuelling on Saturday, making a hazardous emergency landing in southern England after flying 26,389 miles.

After nearly four days existing on nothing but milkshakes, the 61-year-old American toasted his achievement with champagne. Asked what he would do next, he said simply: "Catch up on some sleep."

Fossett burst two tyres when he landed his specially designed GlobalFlyer plane at Bournemouth airport on battery power. The on-board generator had failed over Ireland just after he broke the record.

"We told him he had to land alive," said his billionaire friend and sponsor Richard Branson, who flew behind him in a chase plane on the final leg.

"He actually had to land alive, because if he didn’t land alive he wouldn’t get the record."

The plane, with a wingspan as wide as an 11-storey building is tall, landed with just 200 pounds (90 kg) of fuel left — having used up nearly all the 18,000 pounds loaded at take-off.

Its windshield was so heavily iced Fossett that he could barely see a few metres when he landed, his team said.

He was quickly flown in another plane to an airport in the county of Kent, where he had been expected to land and where the media were gathered for his arrival.

Fossett took off on Wednesday from Florida and flew solo eastward around the world before making a second crossing over the Atlantic to land in Britain.

He broke the record over Ireland, outlasting the ballooning distance record set in 1999 by Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard as well as the 1986 distance record for an aircraft, set by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager on a nine-day flight in 1986.

Flying alone meant he could not break to sleep during the voyage.

"Generally speaking, when someone goes for a record-breaking attempt, you start with five or six people in the plane. He chose to go it alone," Branson said.

The plane, designed for maximum fuel efficiency, has three hulls — with two pods holding fuel suspended on either wing and a cockpit holding the pilot in the center. At take-off it carried six times its weight in fuel.

Fossett piloted GlobalFlyer to an altitude of about 45,000 feet to take advantage of the high-speed jetstream flowing west to east over the Northern Hemisphere.