Hero pilot piggybacked locked planes to safety

Trainee pilot Len Fuller pulled off a one-in-a-million mid-air miracle when his plane collided with another plane mid-flight.

The mid-air collision of two Avro Ansons on a training flight resulted in this dramatic crash landing by trainee pilot Len Fuller. Picture: Australian War Memorial

Len Fuller was just a trainee pilot when his RAAF aircraft collided with another in mid-flight.

But instead of a fiery tragedy, what happened next was a one-in-a-million mid-air miracle.

The story is told in the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters, with historian Michael Adams:

In 1940 during World War II, Fuller and an observer took off on a training flight from Wagga Wagga in NSW in an Avro Anson, alongside a similar plane with a trainee two-man crew.

The two aircraft collided, one on top of the other.

“This is seen by people on the ground,” says Adams, host of the Forgotten Australia podcast.

“Debris has rained down onto the town.

“One guy was standing in the backyard of his pub and had to jump under a tree as this big metal aerial speared down into the earth and nearly killed him.

“So they’re really thinking, well next … everyone’s going to die.

“What happens though is the two planes do not veer off, go to the ground and crash. They stick together.”

Stanley Bruce, High Commissioner for Australia in London, talking with Sergeant Len Fuller in 1941. Picture: Australian War Memorial

Fuller’s plane was locked onto the plane below.

“The bottom of his plane has crushed the pilot and navigator canopy of the lower plane,” Adams says.

“But his propellers have cut into the engine casing of the plane below and become fused.

“Now Len’s propellers are not turning. His plane’s power source is gone.

“However, the plane below – its engines are still spinning.”

Incredibly, the two men in the plane below were not killed.

They jumped to safety with parachutes, as did Fuller’s observer.

“Len can’t abandon the planes because he’s afraid that if he does, they’ll crash into the town below (Brocklesby) and kill people on the ground,” Adams says.

An Avro Anson flies over the training facility at Nhill in WWII.

Fuller decided to steer away from the town and aim for a paddock.

“He must have thought that at this point the planes would prise apart, and as soon as that happened he was dead because the planes have lost altitude by now,” Adams says.

“So he turns to the right and the planes stay together.

“He said they handled like an elephant.”

The engine on the lower plane finally cut out, but Fuller landed the two planes.

“He makes what is called an almost perfect belly landing in the paddock,” Adams says.

“These planes were so undamaged they would both be flying again within a couple of months.

While the public and the world’s press hailed Fuller as a hero, the military brass saw fit to punish him.

To find out why, listen to the interview with Michael Adams in the free In Black and White podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or web.

See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper every Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.