Plane crashed into building

Description

Front: The photograph shows the biplane suspended in the wires above Simcoe Street in Oshawa. The two buildings that have a readable sign are the Dominion Bank and next to it H.A. Porter. Some pedestrians and a Fire Department ladder truck are visible in the foreground. "The first of these on record, and perhaps the most memorable, did just this, when Pilot Cadet Weiss crashed near the intersection of Simcoe Street and King Street, also known as the Four Corners, in early April 1918, during a training exercise that originated from nearby Leaside (Image 1). In a mess of hydro wires, buildings, and smoke, local soldiers attempted to deal with the aftermath and rescue the pilot, who escaped unharmed. They also attended to an injured woman, Mrs. Guy, who was hit by falling bricks on the ground below when unit C526 hit the third story of the W. Dickie Building, not far from the Dominion Bank. Emergent transportation technology and the growing ubiquity of the photograph collided to give a visual documentation of this event, and subsequent clean-up efforts (Image 2) identified by Thomas Bouckley, local heritage enthusiast, as “the most heavily photographed episode in the history of Oshawa,” at least up until this point." Source: http://niche-canada.org/2015/05/07/a-terrible-fright-a-short-history-of-early-aviation-in-oshawa-ontario/ See also: "Airman Makes Two Towns Dark", The Globe (April 23, 1918), p. 3. Back: Flying machine Fell on building in Oshawa.