She could have gone to college. She flew more than 30,000 miles across five continents.
After leaving Belgium in August, she told the internet that she was a teenager. She wants to be the youngest woman ever to fly solo around the world.
Ms. Rutherford dodged giant clouds in Mexico. Her plane was stuck in Alaska for weeks because of bad weather and a visa delay.
The British and Belgian pilots crossed a patch of Siberia. She was barred from China's airspace. Her route across India was disrupted by smog.
Ms. Rutherford was more than two months behind schedule. She didn't quit. She became the youngest woman to go around the globe solo when she arrived in the Belgian city of Kortrijk on Thursday. The supporters lined up on the tarmac to welcome her home.
The Afghan American pilot who set the record five years ago said he didn't expect a 19-year-old to beat it. It goes to show that determination is all that matters.
In July of this year, the youngest person to go around the globe solo was an aviation student from Britain, who was 18 years old.
The plane landed in Belgium on Thursday. Her round-the-world journey began in August.
In August, clouds forced Ms. Rutherford to fly as low as 1,500 feet. She couldn't fly through them because her plane wasn't certified to fly on instruments alone.
She sent a text message to her parents saying she was alive after she lost radio contact for several hours.
She thought the going would get easier in North America. It did not.
She was in the middle of a storm in Florida. She was forced to turn around as she was flying to Seattle in September because of the smoke in her cockpit.
Ms. Rutherford refueled at the Magadan Sokol airport in Russia.
She faced many challenges on the ground.
She made an unexpected landing in North Carolina because the daylight was waning. No one was there when she arrived. A taxi company in the nearest city wouldn't pick her up.
She had to wait several days for her Russian visa to be renewed in Nome. She was there for a few more weeks because of the bad weather.
The man who hosted her in Alaska even though his family had just welcomed a baby was touched by the kindness of strangers.
She said she was there for over half her life when her daughter was 5 weeks old.
Ms. Rutherford has received moral support from other women who are also pilots.
Ms. Rutherford was in Seattle in September. She flew through wildfire smoke before reaching the city.
Ms. Waiz gave tips on dealing with adversity when she greeted the teenager in Florida. In Newfoundland and Labrador, a search-and-rescue pilot with the Canadian military gave the flying wings that she had worn for seven years to Ms. Rutherford as a gesture of solidarity.
Captain Pratt said in an interview that flying a single-engine plane is a challenge. She said that doing it throughout a round-the-world journey at low altitudes is extremely brave.
Captain Pratt, who joined the Canadian military at 18 and became a pilot at 16, looked at that and said, "You are fierce." That is amazing.
She said in August that she was under pressure to get to northeastern Russia by late September to avoid bad weather. She crossed Siberia in early November at a time when the ground temperature was as low as minus 31 degrees.
She said she could have made an emergency landing if she had flown over a remote area. They were covered in snow.
Ms. Rutherford was stuck in Russia for a couple of weeks and was going to cross into the Chinese mainland. She had to fly over water toward South Korea after China barred her from its airspace.
At one point during the flight, the clouds were threatening to move her toward North Korea.
She asked herself if she should head back to Russia. Is cutting into North Korean airspace a risk to their military?
She was able to land in South Korea as planned, but her itinerary was disrupted by a low-pressure system in the Philippines.
She was stuck in Borneo for several days due to bad weather and had to make a difficult decision about when to leave. She made an emergency landing at a domestic airfield on the southern tip of the island. That was a safer bet than crossing the Java Sea, which is notoriously dangerous for planes.
John Sham, a retired Malaysian fighter jet pilot, said by telephone that he had been impressed by Ms. Rutherford.
He said that she was one fascinating, brilliant girl.
The air quality in some parts of South Asia was so bad that Ms. Rutherford could not cross the region safely because of a flat tire.
A flight over a remote stretch of the Indian Ocean was required. Sponsors and airports paid for her journey wherever she went.
After crossing the ocean and landing in Sri Lanka, Ms. Rutherford said that she had learned that she was capable of more than she thought.
Logisticians were not just tolerant but expected by that point in her journey. After flying over the Arabian Sea from Mumbai, India, Ms. Rutherford was unable to land in the Middle East because of high winds. Her plans for crossing Europe were delayed by bad weather.
She said in a telephone interview that she was looking forward to her life not being weather.
She said that she was glad to meet young women around the world who said she had inspired them to take up flying.
As for the pendant of flying wings that she had received, what about it? It had been on her neck for a long time.
She said it was a sign of good fortune. I think it worked.
Jenny Gross was in Brussels.
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