The TAG TransPolar08 team and friends celebrated the official approval of the crew’s record-breaking flight around the world last year at a pre-EBACE event here at Geneva International Airport on Sunday. Marcel Meyer, Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) executive officer of records, presented diplomas designating the record to the five pilots who participated on the more than 52-hour journey. On March 23, FAI ratified the record flight, flown in TAG’s Bombardier Global Express (HB-JEX), exactly four months to the day when the long-range business jet landed back at its starting point, Farnborough Airport in England, on November 23, after passing over both the North and South Poles.
Aziz Ojjeh, TAG Group vice president, led the effort, which on the flight included pilots John Holter, TAG Aviation Europe; Diego Ulrich, TAG Aviation Europe; Mike Muller, type-rating examiner, Global Express; and Emil St. Hilaire, vice president, aircraft sales, ACASS. Ojjeh was in the left seat of the Global Express for the first and last legs, while the four other pilots each took a turn in the left seat on one leg of the trip. Also onboard the flight were flight operations manager Jeffrey Weber, president, TAG Aviation Services (U.S.); flight engineer Fabrice Milliet, TAG Aviation Europe; and FAI official observer Malek Adjadj, an attorney with Fontanet and Associates in Geneva. Reserve pilots Diego Rivera and Pascal Buthey trained for the flight in case one or two of the primary pilots could not go.
