Have you ever wondered to yourself if  two planes have ever collided mid-air?  

Well, sure they have. A bunch of times,  actually. They usually all have the same outcome,  

if the crew aren't killed instantly in the  collision, they're killed when the now smashed  

aircraft plummets to the ground. What makes  today's topic unique, is that these two planes  

merged together after colliding in the air -  and they were still functional! Well, sort of.

In the year 1940, the world was in the midst of  the Second World War. As part of the Allied war  

effort - the Empire Air Training Scheme had been  set up, with the aim of training air crew men from  

the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm,  the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal Canadian  

Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force.  The Empire Air Training Plan remains one of the  

largest aviation training programs in history. Enrolled in the Australian wing of this program,  

were 22-year-old Leonard Fuller, and 19-year-old  Jack Hewson. They were stationed at Forest Hill,  

a newly built air base near the city of  Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, Australia.  

Now before we all laugh at the people living  in a city named "Wagga Wagga" - it's original  

inhabitants were Aboriginal Australians and it's  believed the name originates from their language  

and translates loosely to "place of many crows".  So there's an interesting bit of history there,  

it's not just a funny sounding name, not that I  as an Irishman am in any position to make fun of  

place names, look at this - can you even pronounce  that? The Welsh are even worse for this shite,  

assumedly the English robbed all their vowels. On the 29th September Fuller and Hewson would  

take part in a cross-country training exercise  that would see them fly to a couple of towns  

in the area before returning to Forest Hill.  To do this they were each assigned a British  

twin-engined Avro Anson and a navigator. By the way, this is pronounced Dún Laoghaire,  

I wasn't really going to leave you hanging on  that. This one? Yeah, I don't have a fucking clue.

Not long after taking off from Forest Hill,  Fuller and Hewson were passing above Brocklesby,  

a small town best known for this incident and  literally nothing else. Fuller lead Hewson,  

and at an altitude of about 1,000 ft, or 300  metres, the two made a banking turn. Fuller lost  

sight of Hewson during this manoeuvre, as Hewson  went from behind Fuller's craft to beneath it. 

Then, the two planes slammed together. Fuller's  belly came down on top of Hewson, the Anson's  

propellors chewing into his plane. However,  instead of immediately coming apart and crashing,  

the two planes found themselves lodged together. Miraculously, of the two pilots and two  

navigators, only Hewson had been hurt. His back  had been injured when Fuller's propellors cut into  

his fuselage - but he was not gravely wounded. You may have seen car accidents where a driver  

emerges from a complete wreck somehow unscathed  and walks away. Unfortunately the air men could  

not afford this luxury, as their wreck was in  the sky, and you can't walk away from anything  

in the sky, because there's nothing to walk  on. They had to make it to land for that,  

and that's usually where plane crashes go bad. Fuller's engines had been completely knocked  

out in the collision, but amazingly Hewson's craft  was still operating at full power. Unfortunately,  

there wasn't much Hewson could do, he couldn't  steer his plane. Fuller then realised, that  

although his plane was dead weight, he could still  control the flaps while he piggybacked on Hewson.  

He could effectively steer the combined craft as  long as he remained latched onto Hewson's plane. 

Realising he was the only one with any  control over the current situation,  

Fuller told the other crewmen to bail.  He himself would stay on board the craft,  

to ensure it wouldn't end up  crashing into Brocklesby below  

and killing residents or destroying their homes.  Hewson and the two navigators jumped to safety.

Fuller now guided the conjoined planes  away from the populated area below,  

and began trying to head back to Forest Hill. He  would never make it though, as the bottom plane  

started to lose power. He had to find a spot  to make an emergency landing. This would be no  

easy task, considering he would basically be  landing a plane he wasn't even sitting in - and  

if the two planes came unstuck as he wrestled  with the controls, he was in serious trouble. 

He found a large open field and began circling  it to make his landing. He made his descent,  

and when the two planes touched down, they slid  way across the field before coming to a stop. Both  

planes were still completely wedged together, and  Leonard Fuller was unharmed. Even he was surprised  

at the miracle landing, commenting that it was  one of the smoothest landings he'd ever made.

The freak accident and miraculous recovery made  headlines around the world, casting a spotlight on  

the small town of Brocklesby, in which now stands  a Avro Anson engine as momument to the incident.  

Fuller was commended for his "presence of mind,  courage and determination" in risking his own  

life to ensure not only was nobody else injured  but that the two aircraft were not completely  

destroyed. Both planes were able to be repaired,  saving about 2 million dollars in today's money.  

Fuller was promoted to sargeant, although he  was also docked a weeks pay and confined to  

barracks for two weeks for speaking about the  incident to newspapers without authorisation. 

Jack Hewson was treated for his injuries and  made a full recovery. Both pilots graduated  

the following month and went on to active  service. Sadly, in 1944, Leonard Fuller was  

killed when he was hit by a bus while out  on his bike. In fact, Hewson's navigator,  

Hugh Fraser was also killed shortly after, when  his Lockheed Hudson collided with a tree during  

a training mission in Northern Ireland in  1942 - killing him and his three crew men. 

That means that despite coming from the opposite  side of the globe, he is now buried not too far  

away from me. It also means that two out of the  four men who survived this incredible accident,  

which is a one-of-its-kind as far as I'm  aware, died just a few years later in  

separate collisions in more mundane circumstances. I mean mundane isn't really a suitable word for  

any fatal crash, but to have piloted this to  safety only to be killed by a bus four years  

later seems to me like a strange twist of fate.  They didn't even live to see the end of the war.

But that's how these videos go. Sometimes they  start off good and end up bad. Sometimes they  

start off bad and end up good. A lot of times they  start off bad and end up worse. That's just life,  

I suppose. However your day may have started,  I hope it ends up good. Maybe my video may  

have even helped with that, and if that's the  case, why not consider subscribing? That way  

I can give you a happy ending every week. But  not that kind. I don't do that. Buy my merch.