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

_______________________________ 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

_____________________________ 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

___________________________ 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