THE actions of a heroic wartime pilot who crashed his plane to save lives in a North-East town have been recalled in his native Canada following the Concorde disaster.

William McMullen, from Toronto, was the pilot of a Lancaster bomber which caught fire as it returned from a training flight to its airfield at Middleton St George on January 13, 1945.

The heroic officer ordered his crew to bale out as he steered his aircraft away from the centre of Darlington, where hundreds of revellers were enjoying a Saturday night out.

He lost his life, but his actions in going down with the plane almost certainly saved scores of lives.

The aircraft crashed in what was then called Lingfield Lane, but it was changed to McMullen Road in honour of the pilot's unselfish actions.

A plaque was also unveiled there in 1986, after a visit to Darlington by his daughter Donna Mae Barber who came from Ontario to see the site of the crash and to visit the grave of her father in Harrogate.

A monument to the Canadian Air Force pilot was erected in Dalton the following year and Pilot Officer McMullen was nominated for Darlington's first Citizen of the Year Award in 1995.

The recent actions of the Concorde pilot in the Paris crash brought back memories of Mr McMullen's bravery and led to a tribute being paid to him by an old colleague.

John Feeley, who was a crew member of the Lancaster that fateful night, wrote a letter to the Toronto Star newspaper, comparing the actions of the two men.

Mr Feeley said: "The plane crashed in a farmer's field on the outskirts of Darlington and the citizens of the town are forever grateful to McMullen for going down with the aircraft.

"Virtually the same situation existed with the Concorde and the pilot only had seconds to minimise the number of lives lost."

The letter has since been passed on to Mr McMullen's daughter, who still lives in Canada