The Day the Airplane Crashed in Ogdensburg

It’s September 16th, 1928, the place is the ‘burg.

Bert Geddes, of Pine St, is stunned to learn that part of an aircraft, the flywheel, has crashed through his garage roof.

Rumors swirl; a plane must have gone down somewhere in, or near, Ogdensburg. The aircraft must be in dire trouble after losing that essential part.

Patrolman Charles McNally is quickly dispatched to find the airplane and get numbers off the tail for identification. No reports have come in as of yet of a downed plane, but telephones are just starting to seep into the community’s homes, so it’s no surprise no one has phoned in yet to police headquarters.

In his patrol car, Charles McNally searches; he glances out his squad car window for a plume of black smoke or people on the street in panic.  There is no sign of anything unusual, but he understands sometimes when things like this happen, there are good reasons why they are not readily apparent.

He spends a couple of hours driving about, speaking with citizens. Nothing. No one reports even hearing an airplane overhead, and back in those days, there were plenty of pedestrians on Ogdensburg’s streets.

Perhaps it had overshot Ogedensburg, headed out into the country, and crashed in a farmer’s field? Did it ditch into the St Lawerence? Reasonable assumptions

Still, no plane is found; no reports, no plumes of smoke, and it’s been a couple of hours since the report was made. What exactly is going on?

What did happen, makes this a Terrific Tale.

Later in the day, a man, my grandfather, Cecil Ashley, walks into the police station and has information to offer. Did he see the plane crash? Did he see what area it may have gone down?

No, nothing like that.

He reported, in an embarrassed manner to wide-eyed officers that the flywheel from the downed plane, was not that at all; while true, it was a flywheel, no airplane was involved.

It was the flywheel off of his buzz saw that had come loose and flown from his house on Mechanic Street clear over the Oswegatchie and through Bert Geddes’ garage roof that day - some 3,960 feet!

The revelation is met with a mix of relief and amusement. The imagined catastrophe of a downed airplane is replaced by the reality of an impressive, albeit unintentional, feat of mechanical misadventure. The townspeople, initially gripped by fear and concern, now share a collective sigh of relief and a chuckle at the day’s unexpected turn of events.

As the sun sets over Ogdensburg, the day’s excitement gradually fades, leaving behind a story that will be retold for generations. The tale of the airplane that wasn’t and the flywheel that flew becomes a cherished part of the town’s folklore, a testament to the quirks and surprises that life in a small town can bring.

Now that is a Terrific Tale!