Silver Spitfire attempting first circumnavigation of the globe encounters difficulty in Russia

A Silver Spitfire attempting to complete the wartime aircraft's first ever circumnavigation of the globe was nearly forced to abandon its mission in Russia after delayed bank payments prevented them from leaving the country.

The team running the project, which is currently in its sixth week, transferred a large sum of money to a Russian bank account several weeks ago in order to pay their local handlers for assisting them on their journey.

But internal investigations within several banks into what the money was for led to a delay in it reaching their account, meaning their Russian handlers refused to let them leave the country without payment.

The team were under extra time-sensitive pressure as the project’s two pilots, Steve Brooks, 58, from Burford, Oxfordshire and Matt Jones, 45, from Exeter, Devon, had to leave Russia as soon as possible as they needed to return to the UK for personal reasons.

Luckily, the money eventually made it into Russia with one day to spare allowing Mr Jones to fly out of Magadan Sokoi, Russia on Thursday.

“If the money had arrived a day later, we would have been forced to leave the planes there, head back home for the scheduled break period and just hope they were in good condition when we attempt the second leg in a months time,” Lachlan Monro the project’s director said.

The flight mission is made up of the original spitfire plane, flown by Mr Brooks, and a supporter plane, flown by Mr Jones, which is equipped with radar technology to assist the spitfire on its journey.

But the delay resulted in Mr Brooks having to leave Russia in the supporter plane several days before the Spitfire.

“The outcome now is that Steve has to fly the Spitfire on his own tomorrow. For anyone this is a huge undertaking because you are alone, flying over the sea, in between Russian and Japanese airspace trying to speak to air traffic control in English. It will be tense for him,” Mr Monro said.

The team will begin the second leg of the journey in late October, where they will fly from Japan through south east Asia.