20 Years Since Breitling Orbiter Circled the Globe in 20 Days | Aviation International News

20 Years Since Breitling Orbiter Circled the Globe in 20 Days

Piccard said historic achievement, peobably the last great aviation achievement of the 20th Century, seems like "only yesterday."

Breitlng Orbiter 3 landed in Egypt on March 21, 1999, marking the first time a balloon had been flown around the world in one flight.

By Ian Sheppard

March 22, 2019

Twenty years since Breitling Orbiter 3 became the first balloon to circle the globe without refueling, Bertrand Piccard appeared at the Baselworld 2019 show in Switzerland in March to celebrate the achievement again, and the fact that four of the records he set with copilot Briton Brian Jones, still stand.

Piccard and Jones took off from the Swiss ski village of Château d’Oex on March 1, 1999, and ended in Egypt on March 21—taking in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, Central America, and the Atlantic Ocean on the way. The 20-day journey (actually 19 days, 21 hours and 55 minutes) saw the team achieve success after two earlier attempts ended in failure.

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