The popping of a champagne cork broke the silence in Egypt's remote western desert yesterday as Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones celebrated their return to earth after making the first non-stop trip around the world in a hot-air balloon.
"The Eagle has landed", was the message sent to flight control centre in Geneva Airport, a reference to another of the 20th century's aviation firsts: these were the words spoken by Charles Lindbergh after his historic solo crossing of the Atlantic in 1927.
"We are very lucky and privileged to have succeeded in the first around-the-world trip," Dr Piccard said before landing. "We are having great difficulty realising our dreams have come true. We are with the angels."
The Anglo-Swiss pair had originally hoped to crown their feat with a spectacular landing by the Giza pyramids, one of the world's oldest symbols of human achievement. However, strong winds in Cairo forced them to try to land on a road near the picturesque but remote Dakhla oasis, about 700 km from the capital.
Watched from a light aeroplane by the flight controller, Alan Noble, the balloon almost landed on the road but a chunk of ice fell off and it soared back up again. It finally touched down away from the oasis on its third attempt at 8 a.m. local time. "They did a marvellous job," Mr Noble said on TV later.
Once down on the sand Bertrand Piccard jumped out of the gondola and waved, while Brian Jones, speaking by radio, told the flight controller that after 19 days, one hour and 49 minutes aloft he couldn't wait to "have my first pee that's not in a bottle".
The pilots chose to land in Egypt rather than Mauritania, where the record was actually broken, because of its more extensive infrastructure and less rugged terrain. But with the Breitling technical team navigating soft sand and rocky escarpments that lay between the town and the balloon was a last and unexpectedly difficult challenge. The two men had more than seven hours of waiting before their position was finally pinpointed by satellite and they were picked up by an Egyptian army helicopter.