Flight Lieutenant Ian Menzies Sinclair

Flight Lieutenant Ian Menzies Sinclair enlisted to the Royal Australian Air Force on 29 April 1940.
On 29 September 1940, a mid-air collision occurred over Brocklesby, New South Wales. The accident was unusual in that the aircraft involved, two RAAF Avro Ansons of No. 2 Service Flying Training School, remained locked together after colliding, and then landed safely. The collision stopped the engines of the upper Anson, but those of the machine underneath continued to run, allowing the aircraft to keep flying. Both navigators and the pilot of the lower Anson bailed out. The pilot of the upper Anson found that he was able to control the interlocked aircraft with his ailerons and flaps, and made an emergency landing in a nearby paddock.
All four crewmen survived the incident, and the upper Anson was repaired and returned to flight service.
Tail number N4876 was piloted by Leading Aircraftman Leonard Graham Fuller, 22, from Cootamundra, with Leading Aircraftman Ian Menzies Sinclair, 27, from Glen Innes, as navigator.Tail number L9162 was piloted by Leading Aircraftman Jack Inglis Hewson, 19, from Newcastle, with Leading Aircraftman Hugh Gavin Fraser, 27, from Melbourne, as navigator. Their planned route was expected to take them first to Corowa, then to Narrandera, then back to Forest Hill.
The Ansons were at an altitude of 300 metres over the township of Brocklesby, near Albury, when they made a banking turn. Fuller lost sight of Hewson's aircraft beneath him and the two Ansons collided in what Fuller later described as a "grinding crash and a bang as roaring propellors struck each other and bit into the engine cowlings".The aircraft remained jammed together, the lower Anson's turret wedged into the other's port wing root, and its fin and rudder balancing the upper Anson's port tailplane.
Both of the upper aircraft's engines were knocked out in the collision but those of the one below continued to turn at full power as the interlocked Ansons began to slowly circle. Fuller described the "freak combination" as "lumping along like a brick". He nevertheless found that he was able to control the piggybacking pair of aircraft with his ailerons and flaps, and began searching for a place to land.The two navigators, Sinclair and Fraser, bailed out, followed soon after by the lower Anson's pilot, Hewson, whose back had been injured when the spinning blades of the other aircraft sliced through his fuselage.
Fuller travelled 8 kilometres after the collision, then successfully made an emergency pancake landing in a large paddock 6 kilometres south-west of Brocklesby. The locked aircraft slid 180 metres across the grass before coming to rest. As far as Fuller was concerned, the touchdown was better than any he had made when practising circuits and bumps at Forest Hill airfield the previous day.He underwent general flying training in Australia, and travelled to England in February 1941 to complete his operational training. Flight Lieutenant Sinclair went on to fly Wellington bombers with 149 Squadron, based in Mildenhall, England. With 149 Squadron, he participated in bombing operations over Germany. After completing twenty operations, Flight Lieutenant Sinclair became a flying instructor. He was discharged on 22 March 1945.