Watch Fossett land

He completed his mission despite a fuel shortage, landing the Virgin GlobalFlyer at 1950 GMT in Salina, Kansas, where he took off on Tuesday.

The US millionaire had considered aborting the trip and landing in Hawaii, but he decided to press on because of favourable tail winds.

"What a day," he said as he emerged from the plane after a 67-hour journey.

"It's something I wanted to do for a long time," he told a rapturous crowd who lined the runway. "I'm a really lucky guy."

Mr Fossett has notched up more than 100 world records in five different fields of endeavour. In 2002, he became the first man to fly round the world in a balloon single-handed.

'Let's go for it'

To achieve his latest feat, the pilot flew across the Atlantic, North Africa, Asia and the Pacific, before returning to the US.

Somehow, I think I'll sleep tonight Steve Fossett Profile: Steve Fossett In pictures: Record flight Have Your Say

He lived on chocolate milkshakes and slept for only a few minutes at a time.

"Right now I'm not sleepy," he told reporters after landing. "Somehow, I think I'll sleep tonight," he added.

Mr Fossett had faced a number of technical challenges on his historic journey.

In the first few hours of the flight, the plane's navigation system failed, leaving him flying blind. Fortunately, the system came back up before he flew out over the Atlantic Ocean.

On Wednesday, there was speculation the adventurer might have to abandon his first attempt at a jet-propelled circumnavigation because of an unexplained loss of fuel.

Checks had revealed the vehicle was missing 1,200kg (2,600lbs) of fuel and mission controllers were at a loss to explain the situation.

Fossett and his sponsor, Virgin's Sir Richard Branson celebrate

But later, project manager Paul Moore said wind conditions and the fuel situation had improved between Japan and Hawaii, prompting Mr Fossett to tell mission control: "Let's go for it."

The pioneering aircraft - the world's most efficient jet plane - was designed by aviation legend Burt Rutan, who also designed the SpaceShipOne rocket plane.

Built by Rutan's Scaled Composites company, GlobalFlyer is a single-pilot, single-engine turbofan aircraft.

Scaled used computer aided aerodynamics to design the aircraft.

The structure of the plane is entirely made from composite material and is ultra-light, enabling the vehicle to fly 75% further than the range record for jet-powered planes.

Rutan was also behind Voyager, a propeller-driven plane in which his brother, Dick, and Jeana Yeager flew around the world without stopping or re-fuelling in 1986.

Their nine-day circumnavigation covered 42,420km (26,366 miles).

VIRGIN ATLANTIC GLOBAL FLYER - LONG-DISTANCE JET PLANE (1) Fuel tanks - Gross weight is 10 tonnes; empty weight is 1.5t (2) Engine - Williams FJ44-3 ATW (10,200 Newtons of thrust) (3) Cockpit - Pressurised and large enough for pilot to lie down Length - 11.7m; Height - 3.6m; Wingspan - 35m Speed - in excess of 460km/h; 290mph; 250 knots