A quick update

Steve Fossett has now been in the air for more than 19 hours in his bid to become the first person to fly around the world solo and uninterrupted. Everything seems to be going according to plan: at 19 hours and six minutes Steve had covered 6,962 miles and is flying at 47,000ft over Libyan airspace with a 100mph jet stream at his back. He's hoping to maintain the same altitude for the rest of the night.

Here at mission control, things are fairly quiet. The next scheduled press conference isn't until 10pm there has been a chance to stretch my legs walking around downtown Salina - something Fossett won't have the chance to do. My colleague Richard and I witnessed a car crash, which gave us the chance to watch the local emergency services and police arrive with incredible speed.

Many Guardian readers may not be aware that a story as big - if not bigger - than GlobalFlyer in Kansas is the so-called BTK Strangler serial murderer case: BTK stands for bind, torture and kill. Dennis L Rader, a Wichita man, has been arrested on suspicion of carrying out 10 killings over a period of 31 years. You can read all about it on the Wichita Eagle site.

But back to the record attempt. I'm planning another update after tonight's press conference, so stay tuned.

For more on GlobalFlyer, including the latest news story and video of the takeoff, visit our special report.