Under a sunny, blue sky, Emma Houlston lands her family's single-engine plane in St. John's, N.L. Despite a shaky landing, the touchdown means the nine-year-old makes history as the youngest person to pilot a plane across Canada.
Her flight took off two weeks prior, from Victoria, B.C. Emma is accompanied by her father, a licensed pilot, who is on board to lend moral support.

A video camera inside the plane verifies that Emma is in fact doing all the flying — solo.
For the nine-year-old who got her first taste of flight at age six, it's all part of a great summer vacation.
At the end of the historic flight, Emma talks about her reluctance to fly back home to Medicine Hat, Alta. She will be a passenger on that leg of the journey, and it turns out Emma gets motion sickness when she's not piloting the plane.

• Emma, accompanied by her father, made the record-breaking flight in a single-engine Grumman aircraft.
• To prepare for the flight, Emma and her father trained for eight months leading up to the coast-to-coast air odyssey.
• She flew an average of three hours a day on her two week trip.
• The distance from Victoria, B.C., to St. John's, N.L., is 5,097 kilometres, or 2,752 nautical miles.

• The publishers of the Guinness Book of Records eliminated the "youngest pilot" category from the book because they did not want to encourage unsafe flights.
• Emma's family suffered backlash from those who believed her to be too young to attempt such a feat.

Medium: Television
Program: Sunday Report
Episode: Girl Pilot
Broadcast Date: July 24, 1988
Host: Peter Mansbridge, Reporter: Brian Dubreuil
Guest(s): Emma Houlston
Duration: 1:58