A COLD AND exhausted 65-year-old Russian balloonist came back to Earth with a bruising thud in the Australian Outback today after claiming a new world record by flying solo around the world nonstop in 11 days, officials said.
Fedor Konyukhov landed 160 kilometres east of the town of the Northam, where he started his journey on 12 July, about three hours after he flew over it on his return, flight coordinator John Wallington said.
“He’s landed, he’s safe, he’s sound, he’s happy,” Wallington said from the landing site. “It’s just amazing.”
It’s fantastic – the record’s broken, everyone’s safe. It’s all good.
Konyukhov’s gondola – a carbon box two metres high, two metres long and 1.8 metres wide – bounced twice over 200 metres in an empty field and tipped on its side before the support crew grabbed it to prevent the deflating balloon from dragging it further, crew member Steve Griffin said.
“He’s got a bruise on his cheek, but he’s pretty well unscathed,” Griffin said.
Konyukhov flew by helicopter back to Northam, where his first shower in 11 days was a priority, Griffin said.
Konyukhov demonstrated precision navigation of his 56-metre-tall helium-and-hot-air balloon by returning to Australia directly over the west coast city of Perth, then over the airfield at Northam, 96 kilometres to the east by road.
American businessman Steve Fossett also started from Northam to set a record of 13 days, eight hours for his 33,000-kilometre journey in 2002.
Konyukhov, a Russian Orthodox priest, took a longer route and roughly 11 days, six hours to complete the circumnavigation.
Crews in six helicopters followed the 1.6-metric-ton balloon from Northam inland to help him land.
His journey of more than 34,000 kilometres took him through a thunder storm in the Antarctic Circle, where temperatures outside the gondola fell to minus-50 degrees Celsius.
The gondola heating stopped working last Thursday, so Konyukhov had to thaw his drinking water with the balloon’s main hot air burner, Wallington said.
The journey also took him to speeds up to 240 kilometres-per-hour and heights up to 10,614 metres before he released helium to prevent the balloon from continually climbing as its fuel load lightened, his son Oscar Konyukhov said.
Konyukhov aimed to get four hours of sleep a day in naps of 30 or 40 minutes between hours of checking and maintaining equipment and instruments.
He used a bucket for a toilet and emptied it over the side.
Konyukhov’s team had said that landing the balloon could be the most challenging and dangerous part of the journey.
Fossett, who was 58 at the time, was forced by strong winds to spend more than a day in the air after setting his own record as the first person to circle the globe in a balloon. His capsule tumbled along the ground for 15 minutes after he landed on a cattle ranch in southwest Australia’s Queensland state. He emerged from the capsule with a bloodied mouth from biting his lip during the rough landing, but was otherwise unhurt.
The Swiss-based World Air Sports Federation did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the new record.
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