12-Year-Old Pilot Heads for Europe

AUGUSTA, Me. — Twelve-year-old Vicki Van Meter soared up, up and away Sunday in a bid to cross the Atlantic in Amelia Earhart’s path.

Van Meter took off from Augusta State Airport, circled about 200 well-wishers below and dipped her wings before heading toward her first stop in Newfoundland.

Her flight instructor is on board because she is too young to fly alone.

“If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything,” the sixth-grader from Meadville, Pa., said before saying goodby to her parents and climbing into the single-engine plane, “Harmony.”

The aspiring astronaut is following a flight path similar to Earhart’s when she became the first woman to fly solo about 2,200 miles across the Atlantic in 1932.

Van Meter took off from the Augusta airport in September for a trip that made her the youngest female to make a transcontinental flight. The four-leg trip ended in San Diego.

Kennebec Valley Chamber of Commerce President Peter Thompson said Van Meter could be the youngest person to attempt a transatlantic flight but that it is difficult to know because there are few records for pilots younger than 16, who are required to fly with an instructor.