On 29 September 1940, a mid-air collision occurred over Brocklesby, New
South Wales, Australia. Two Avro Ansons of No. 2 Service Flying
Training School RAAF were on a cross-country navigational exercise and
made a banking turn at an altitude of 1,000 feet (300 metres). Leading
Aircraftman Leonard Fuller lost sight of the aircraft below him, and the
pair collided, locking together and knocking out the upper Anson's
engines. The lower Anson's turret wedged into the other's port wing
root, its fin and rudder balancing the upper aircraft's port tailplane.
Both navigators and the pilot of the lower Anson bailed out. Fuller
found that he was able to control the interlocked aircraft using his
ailerons and flaps, together with the still-functioning engines on the
machine underneath. After flying for five miles (eight kilometres), he
made an emergency landing in a paddock. All four crewmen survived the
incident, and the upper Anson was repaired and returned to flight
service. The freak accident garnered news coverage around the world and,
according to the Greater Hume Shire Council, it remains Brocklesby's
"main claim to fame".
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1940_Brocklesby_mid-air_collision>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1774:
The publication of The Sorrows of Young Werther raised the 24
-year-old Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to international fame.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther>
1923:
The British Mandate for Palestine came into effect, officially
creating the protectorates of Palestine (to include a Jewish homeland)
under British administration and Transjordan as a separate emirate under
Abdullah I.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_for_Palestine_(legal_instrument)>
1941:
The Holocaust: German Nazis aided by their collaborators began
the Babi Yar massacre in Kiev, Ukraine, killing over 30,000 Jewish
civilians in two days and thousands more in the months that followed.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babi_Yar>
1962:
Alouette 1, Canada's first satellite, and the first satellite
constructed by a country other than the Soviet Union or the United
States, was launched.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alouette_1>
2006:
Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 collided in mid-air with an
Embraer Legacy business jet near Peixoto de Azevedo, Mato Grosso,
Brazil, killing 154 people, and triggering a Brazilian aviation crisis.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Transportes_A%C3%A9reos_Flight_1907>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
abnegate:
1. To deny oneself (something), to renounce or give up (a right, power,
claim, privilege or convenience).
2. To deny, to reject (something, for example a truth or a commonly-held
belief).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abnegate>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
There's not the least thing can be said or done, but people will
talk and find fault.
--Miguel de Cervantes
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes>