Bertrand Piccard (Switzerland) and Brian Jones (UK) completed the first ever non-stop around-the-world flight in a balloon on 20 March 1999, after piloting Breitling Orbiter 3 from Chateau d’Oex, Switzerland, to the ‘finishing line’ of 9.27ºW over Mauritania, North Africa.

Regarded as one of the last great challenges in aviation, their circumnavigation was also the longest ever flight in a balloon, in terms of both duration (477 hr 47 min) and distance (40,814 km or 25,360 miles).