Witness to a 1955 Plane Crash

It was a sight my dad never forgot, but he didn’t share the experience with me until a few months before he died. It was a memory of a sultry September day in 1955, when he was the first person on the scene of a plane crash in southwest Millcreek, a suburb of Erie, PA. More than 60 years later, the tragedy still affected him.

After my dad told me this story, I searched for a report of the crash on the Internet and came up with nothing. It made me wonder if the story was true. Dad’s gone now, but recently, I asked his brother if he knew anything about the incident. My uncle confirmed the story and told me that he was even with my father that day. 

Eyewitness Account of the Troubled Plane

It was late afternoon on September 19, 1955. My father, uncle, and another man were applying a Perma-Stone siding to a southwest Millcreek home. Dad was only 20 years old but already married and the father of two. His brother had graduated from high school the previous June. 

The men were tired, hot, sweaty, and ready to call it a day. As my dad applied the stone and my uncle slapped on the “mud,” a deafening engine sound passing overhead caused the men to stop what they were doing and look upward. The underbelly of a small airplane passed overhead—much too low. The young men watched as it roared over the trees and out of sight. A second later, a loud explosion shook the ground where they stood. 

“I’ll bet that plane crashed,” said my dad.

“Could be,” said his brother. He could see the excitement on my father’s face.

“C’mon. Let’s go see.”

“Nah, I’m beat. I just want to finish up and get home.”

“Well, I’m going,” said my dad, and hopped into his car.

My father followed the smoke already rising from the trees and parked his car on the road that ran along a wooded area. He entered the woods and quickly came upon a grisly sight. Completely alone, he witnessed the flames rising high from the aircraft and a body protruding from its window. My young father could see there was no saving the man and, horrorstruck, stumbled through the trees to his car. He hurried back to the work site where his brother and the other worker were finishing up and reported that the plane had indeed crashed.

My uncle said that by the time he drove to the site shortly after, the entire area had been blocked off. The next day, he read about the crash in the Erie Daily Times.

When I first tried to research the crash, the Erie newspapers were not online, and my father hadn’t been sure of the date it happened. Last week, my uncle narrowed the date down for me and now, with an Erie County Library card, it’s possible to view Erie newspapers online from 1884 to present. With the new information, it didn’t take me long to find out what happened that day.

Coverage of the Plane Crash by Erie Daily Times

On September 19, 1955, two US Air Force officers were killed instantly when the C-45 training plane they were flying crashed in a wooded area on the Clayton Armour horse farm, north of 38^th Street, between McKee and Asbury Roads. This is where the Woodhaven Subdivision was developed in the 1960s.

The pilot was a local man, Captain Richard W. Lane, aged 32. The other victim was 24-year-old Second Lieutenant Robert H. Gingles of Ashland, WI. They were members of the Sixth Weather Group at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, OH.

Witnesses saw puffs of smoke and flames on the left side of the plane immediately after takeoff. Glenn Stafford, an employee of Port Erie Airport (now Erie International) said the plane never climbed above 200 feet. 

The pilot seemed to try to turn the plane around, but when that wasn’t possible, he might have been heading for a pasture on the farm property, instead plunging at a 60-degree angle into the woods. 

Paul Dike of Lake City was reported as the first person on the scene. He stated that he tried to find some way to save the men but several explosions prevented his efforts. 

Twelve-year-old Maureen Nicholson, who lived nearby, said she and some companions were playing at the rear of the Armour farm when they saw a plane flying toward them. “It came in low and clipped the tops off a couple of trees and then just dropped into the woods. After it hit the ground there were three loud explosions,” she said.

More than 100 rescuers were soon on the scene. It took fire crews more than 45 minutes to bring the inferno under control. 

The C-45, a seven-passenger, twin-engine model, was also known as a Twin Beechcraft D-18, generally used to carry personnel. Initial speculation blamed the crash on the hot and humid air that day. An Erie Daily Times article stated that it was possible one of the engines had failed and this would have created a severe imbalance of power and resulting instability. It stated further, “Captain Lane was praised for his apparent attempt to save the ship. The left propeller of the downed ship had been feathered, another action necessary to prevent wind currents from shaking the ship to pieces in mid-air.” To feather a propeller is to adjust its angle so that the leading edges are pointed in the direction of flight. 

After the crash, an investigation team from Wright-Patterson examined the crash site and what was left of the plane. They photographed the evidence and took parts of the aircraft back to Dayton to be X-rayed, which might have revealed defects in the materials. The findings were compiled into a report that was sent to the Flying Safety Research lab at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, CA. The results of the investigation were not located during research for this article. Perhaps the families of the victims have that information.

About the Crew

Second Lieut. Robert Henry Gingles, 24, was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Gingles of Ashland, WI. According to the Oshkosh Northwestern (Oshkosh, WI), Gingles came to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as a student pilot, just five months prior to the crash. Tragically, Gingles had been married just a few days before the crash to Shirley Mae Roffers, age 21.

Captain Richard W. Lane was a career officer and had accumulated 11 years of Air Force service including missions in Europe and Korea. He was the Sixth Weather Group’s chief weather forecaster. Although he was assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Base, he and his wife Phyllis planned to purchase a home in Millcreek. In fact, on the day of the crash, they were negotiating the details and all that remained were a few signatures, according to an Erie Daily Times article on September 20, 1955.

Captain Richard Lane and the former Phyllis Liebau, had five children, including twins that had just been born in August. After Captain Lane’s death, Phyllis went through with the sale and lived in the home at 1116 Potomac Avenue until her death in 2000. 

When I shared the results of my research with my uncle, he said that my dad would have really been interested in reading about the event. I wonder if this experience contributed to my father’s keen interest in other plane crashes over the years. He was intrigued by what may have caused each crash, closely following the news coverage of the investigations. He often expressed empathy for what the people in the plane must have been thinking and experiencing when they realized their fate. I’m sure that was a result of seeing the body of a man, who moments before, had been doing just that.

Update: January 22, 2023

Yesterday, I was contacted by Dave Woehr, a former Millcreek resident, who now lives in Ohio. He wrote that he had been a witness to the crash. I asked him to tell me more about his experience, and with his permission, his words appear below:

In 1955 I was 12 years old.  Lived right by the airport before the current terminal was built.  In those days, mostly DC3’s were the main aircraft serving Erie:  Allegheny Airlines and Capitol Airlines.  I was fascinated by the planes, although they were pretty loud to be living right next to.  I watched them come in and take off every day, often with a Nickel-Plate or New York Central train powered by a steam locomotive in the background.  I saw this particular C-45 take off from the airport.  I still remember the twin tail fins–not like anything else I had seen at the Erie airport.  It was very loud for such a small plane and never gained much altitude.  It headed west and made a quick turn back to the east, then plunged out of sight followed by a huge smoke mushroom rising into the sky.  I knew it had crashed.  I am now 81 years old, but I still remember that sight.  Scary.