US balloonist Steve Fossett is on course to reach the Chilean coastline within days, and had completed more than a third of his trip around the world.
Mr Fossett is attempting to become the first person to circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon.
His mission control at Washington University in St. Louis said that at 11.30 GMT today the pear-shaped, silver-coloured balloon, Solo Spirit, was about 560 kilometers (350 miles) west of Easter Island, on its fifth day over the South Pacific.
It was averaging a speed of 84 kilometers (53 miles) per hour, at an altitude of some 6,000 meters (20,000 feet), in favorable weather conditions, it said.
Mr Fossett took off from Northam, in western Australia, on August 4th.
It is his fifth solo balloon flight of more than 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) since February 1995 - when he became the first balloonist to complete a solo crossing of the Pacific.
Mr Fossett's trip around the world is expected to take 15 to 18 days.
AFP
