Damage to the plane after it hit the Mountain Straight wall. Image: Fox Sports
Hayden Pullen, a former racer turned pilot, broke his silence on the incident in an appearance on the Lucky Dogs podcast with Supercars drivers Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown.
Pullen had been tasked by Supercars with landing his stunt plane on Mountain Straight in the lead-up to the race start as part of the trophy’s journey to the grid.
While initially appearing to land safety, Pullen’s attempt to turn the plane around on the narrow stretch resulted in its tail clipping the concrete wall.
Despite that contact, the pilot then completed his mission by taking off as planned – flying straight over the packed Hell Corner spectator mound as he did so.
The decision to take off despite the contact shocked onlookers – which included the live TV audience – and resulted in legal action from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
Pullen, who revealed on the podcast that he voluntarily handed in his pilot’s license for 12 months as part of a self-punishment proposal to CASA, said the pressure of the moment impaired his judgement.
“I’ve had 12 months to think about this. Why did that happen? How does it happen?” Pullen said.
“What I’ve learned is… it’s a bit like if you’re drunk and you think you’re making the right decisions, and everything seems a good idea at the time.
“You might be driving your car home, and even just because you make it home, it doesn’t mean it’s right.
“The pressure and the excitement and the adrenaline, which I didn’t know before, but I know now, can make you be like you’re drunk.
“They’re the things you need to control before that situation happens. You’ve got to control that pressure, don’t let the pressure control you, which is certainly no excuse.”
Safety authority reveals Bathurst 1000 stunt breached flying rules
Pullen said he had become overconfident from his recent stunt flying experience and fully deserved the flood of criticism that followed the incident.
“I made the dumbest decisions ever, and jeez, did I cop a spray on social media. And I deserved it,” he continued.
“You read some of the things, they were pretty nasty comments. But what I did was reckless, especially when you think about it.
“At the time, it felt, ‘oh, it’s not too bad, it’s okay’. I was justifying it in my own head.
“I had a plan that if anything was to go wrong, as you’re taking off upwind, that we’re going left, because there’s only grass and paddock there, and just steer it into there. That was all planned.
“But when you look at it, that paddock over there shouldn’t have even been a plan B. That’s the lesson out of that, never do that again. What I should have done is just said, ‘no, it’s too hard’.”
Pullen said his licence is due to be returned shortly after the Bathurst 1000.
Having kept his plane in storage for the last year, Pullen wants to take to the skies again before deciding whether he will continue as a pilot.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking in 12 months and not just about flying, just all sorts of things in life,” he said.
“Things you think you can get away with, why do that? Just calculate it and be a better person and try and help other people.
“I’m not even that person anymore. The person I was, that’s not the person I want to be.”
Pullen, whose racing experience includes outings in Super2, said he’s considering moving back into circuit racing via the TA2 Muscle Car Series.
Check out the podcast below for the full chat with Pullen