AN UNEXPECTED VISIT TO MANSFIELD

Did you know... a plane crashed in a field just outside of Mansfield?

During the summer of 1916, two years into the First World War, Canadian Forces Base Borden was ready to open and train men for the war. CFB Borden was originally known as “Sandy Plains” and was a place to train members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force as well as the Canadian Aviation Corps. In 1916, a plane and pilot on a training exercise from CFB Borden had to make an emergency landing and crash landed in Mansfield. This was exciting news in the area as flight was still a relatively new concept with the first flight by the Wright Brothers taking place in 1903. There was a photograph snapped of the downed plane with a group of locals gathered around it.