Hero pilot let plane fly unaided at 7,500ft as he battled to save parachutist

A hero pilot has been awarded one of the UK's highest bravery awards after a dare-devil rescue of a parachutist who was left dangling by his feet from a plane. Garth Greyling, who is currently serving in Afghanistan, flew over the skies of Bad Lippspringe, Germany, allowing a parachute team to make their jump.

But unbeknown to him, Major Jeremy Denning was left hanging underneath the plane after his left leg became tangled in a 15ft trailing rope. The Major was facing certain death, with no way of alerting the pilot as he made his final descent to land.

But as Garth Greyling approached the runway, frantic air traffic controllers told him of the Major's plight. As a result he climbed the aircraft back to 7,500ft with only one possible solution open to him if he was to save Major Denning's life - to leave the controls rendering the aircraft pilotless and walk back along the Turbo-Islander and cut the Major free.

Now Greyling is to receive a rarely awarded Royal Humane Society Bronze medal on the recommendation of the man whose life he saved. Describing the incident, which happened in July last year, Royal Humane Society secretary Dick Wilkinson said: 'In all the years we have been making awards for bravery we have never had an incident like this one.

'It is truly amazing. If ever any-one deserved one of our awards he does. It really was extraordinary airmanship.

'The aircraft could have gone into a dive and crashed killing both men.'

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