AMERICAN balloonist Steve Fossett was denied permission to fly over Libya yesterday, following a detour that could prevent him from becoming the first person to circle the globe non stop in a balloon.
But Fossett (52) refused to give up, telling his control centre in Chicago he wanted to "go for it."
Project manager Mr Bo Kemper said India looked like the most logical end point of the journey, citing weather conditions that could stall Fossett's progress and bring the balloon down after a trip half the way around the world.
"The team and Steve are very disappointed," Mr Kemper said. "But on the other hand it has been an unbelievably successful trip. Equipment worked 100 per cent. The weather was working 100 per cent. The only thing that didn't work was political."
The political news came in a three line telegram from the Libyan government with a terse denial signed "best regards." It ended days of back channel and public negotiating to win permission for Fossett to use Libyan airspace.
"For the Libyans to say they can't do it reflects the paranoia of the Libyan leadership," State Department spokesman Mr Nicholas Burns commented in Washington. "It's really a shame that the Libyans wouldn't, have a lighter touch on this one.
Washington has no diplomatic relations with Libya, which it accuses of involvement in the bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
The new route, over Niger and Chad and then Egypt, will cause Fossett to use an extra day and a half's worth of fuel, Mr Kemper said. More importantly, the dip south would take him out of the favourable wind current that pushed him across the Atlantic in three days.
While Mr Kemper refused to call the mission over, he said "The only reason to keep flying will be to break the duration record."
The current mark for time spent in a balloon is six days and 16 minutes set in 1981 by Richards Abruzzo and Troy Bradley. Fossett's trip began on Monday in St Louis.