21 March 2010
Swiss aviator Riccardo Mortara (pictured) and his crew have set the record for the fastest flight around the world in a 9,000-12,000kg aircraft. Their plane, a 1980 Sabreliner 65 jet, took of from Geneva at 06:12 UTC on Friday morning, flew east, and returned Sunday at 16:06 UTC, completing the 36,770 km minimum distance in 57 hours 54 minutes. The average speed around the world was 647km/h.
This is the first time a record has been set in this weight class with refueling stops, and beats pioneering pilot Steve Fossett’s time of 67 hours and one minute, which was achieved without stops in the state-of-the-art VirginFlyer in 2006.
A secondary target was to beat golfer Arnold Palmer’s 1978 record of 57 hours 26 minutes, which he set in a Learjet 36 – a plane in a lighter weight category than Mortara’s elderly Sabreliner.
Mortara (62) led the three man crew – comprising himself, co-captain Gabriel Mortara (28), and co-pilot Flavien Guderzo (26) – from Geneva to Bahrain, then Colombo, Macau, Osaka, Petropavlovsk, Anchorage, Las Vegas and Montreal, before having to urgently change plans. Their next intended destination had been Keflavik, but the volcanic eruption resulted in all of Iceland’s airports being shut down. Halfway there, Mortara was forced to return to Canada, refueling in Goose Bay, Labrador, before re-calculating the Sabreliner’s route. <a href=”http://”>Click here for more</a>
