His dream fulfilled, high-flying Fossett comes down to earth

The American millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett landed safely in Australia last night, ending his 14-day flight to become the first person to fly solo around the world in a balloon.

His silver balloon, Spirit of Freedom, landed on barren terrain near Lake Yamma Yamma in south-west Queensland at about 10.30pm BST.

The capsule dragged along the outback dirt for 15 minutes because of a problem with deflation equipment. Fossett was unable to pull a rip cord necessary to complete the deflation but was not injured. Speaking via radio, he said: "I am enormously relieved to have the balloon project [done] ... I think the balloon flights have been the most dangerous thing I have ever been involved in."

Fossett crossed the finish line on Tuesday but was forced to postpone his landing because of high winds. Hours before his final descent a loose burner hose caused a fire to break out inside his gondola, and Fossett cut off the propane fuel tank to avoid a disaster. Speaking by satellite phone, he said his balloon was too large to risk an abortive landing. "If I was to get injured hitting the ground, I would be unable to deflate the balloon and would be dragged forever."

This was Fossett's sixth attempt at circumnavigating the globe. Last year, he was forced by storms to land in Brazil, where problems deflating led to him being dragged along the ground for a mile. Yesterday he crossed the South Australian coastline over the town of Ceduna, where almost all of the 3,500 inhabitants came out to wave. "He was a tiny dot out over the bay," said Cheryl Nicholls, a police officer. But a planned landing near the site of a detention centre for asylum-seekers, Woomera, was cancelled because of 18mph winds.

Fossett has received congratulatory calls from Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones, the Anglo-Swiss team that first circled the globe in a balloon, and from Sir Richard Branson, who made several unsuccessful attempts at the circumnavigation.

Sir Richard said Fossett's achievement was greater than that of Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic in 1927. The balloon's gondola is destined for the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, where it will be hung next to Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis plane. Fossett ­ who has scaled some of the highest mountains and set numerous flying and sailing records ­ is already planning to fly a glider to the stratosphere, 60,000ft above New Zealand.