Air Safety

Inferiority Complex

My name’s Jack Stephens. I’m retired now, but one way or another’ve been around aviation most of my life and it taught me one thing – that an aeroplane’s no place to try to prove yourself. I’ll never forget what happened – it’s haunted me now for the past 15 years.

I used to run the newsagency at-well let’s call it Merrimain, though that isn’t its name-down in the Riverina in New South Wales. It’s a good town and its was good to me- or it was until it happened.

I’d been there since the end of the war, so I was almost one of the locals. At any rate I’d watched all those kids grow up – that’s what it made it hurt so much. I came to Merrimain when I bought into the newsagency just after I was demobilised from the RAAF. You could say that had nothing to do with it-and that what happened could have happened anyway. But even after all this time, I still can’t help feeling in some way responsible.

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