Twin brothers Aiden and Zac Pattison cross paths in the middle east during deployment

Two brothers whose sibling rivalry set them down a similar career path have bumped into each other in the middle east. See how they celebrated.

Twin brothers and Flight Lieutenants Zac and Aiden Pattison at Camp Baird, Headquarters Middle East. PHOTO: LSIS Nadav Harel

Typically these twin brothers are separated by a 2600 kilometre drive across Australia, but a recent deployment to the Middle East brought them back together just in time for a celebration.

Aiden and Zac Pattison were born 18 minutes apart, and since that moment their sibling rivalry has grown and even led them down similar career paths.

Flight Lieutenant Aiden who is currently posted to RAAF base Townsville, joined the air force before his brother and was drawn to expeditionary engineering and working around airfield construction and contingency response.

While Flight Lieutenant Zac completed university before joining and chose to specialise in civil engineering and air base operations.

He is currently posted on the other side of the country at RAAF Base East Sale, a couple hundred kilometres south east of Melbourne.

However their paths recently crossed in an unexpected place, the AI Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, where they were able to share a classic Aussie BBQ just in time for Australia Day.

Zac flew into the base to take over his brother’s role as one of the project engineers.

“It was pretty cool knowing I would be taking over from my brother in the Middle East,” Zac said.

“We don’t get much of a chance to catch up, so it has been great to spend time together and beat him in another Parkrun.”

Originally published as Twin brothers Aiden and Zac Pattison cross paths in the middle east during deployment