Thread by @ajcdeane

#Deanehistory 156. Hat tip FCT.

September, 1956. Thomas Fizpatrick, a veteran of both the Second World War and the Korean War, is getting legless with some kindred spirits in a bar on St Nicholas Avenue, in the area in which he’d grown up, Washington Heights, Upper Manhattan,

in the hazy period well known to nighthawks that sits somewhere indefinable between late night and early morning.

I, he boasted, could go to New Jersey & get back here in 15 minutes. I could go get a plane & fly it right to this bar if I wanted to.

Er, no – you could not, someone not unnaturally replied.

And so Fitzpatrick got in his car – drink driving laws of the day being more lax than ours, but not THAT lax, we will overlook the obvious point to be made – drove over the Hudson into New Jersey,

drove onto a lot at Teterboro Airport, stole I mean borrowed a plane… & flew it to the doorstep of the bar.

I mean, he landed in the street. Not that narrow a street, but still a street in Manhattan.

No take off clearance. No radio. No lights. No landing clearance (obviously).

He swaggered back into the bar and, we can imagine, modestly asked his audience what they thought about that, then.

I reckon the police are going to want to have a chat with you, may have been a reply.

Sure enough, a policeman duly poked his head around the door and said… er – any of you know why there’s a plane outside?

Fitzpatrick admitted that he’d flown the plane onto the street, but maintained that he’d landed in the street because of engine trouble.

This line was rather thin as an account, you might think. For example, upon ascertaining Fitzpatrick’s previous movements that night, a question might be… Gosh, well, what were the odds that you’d develop engine trouble and be forced to land

right in front of the bar in which you were just downing a pondsworth of booze? Also, having had a look at the plane – whilst you ran every risk of tearing the wings off and dying in a fiery ball of destruction that took up a city block with it, in fact everything is fine with it

– engine included.

But what could they do in the end? They had asked the plane’s owner to support a prosecution on the basis that the plane had been stolen by Fitzpatrick, but he declined, perhaps on the basis that whilst such behaviour not to be encouraged he quietly found

Fitzpatrick’s feat rather impressive.

The Felony Court’s Magistrate stressed how dangerous his actions had been – he could have hit a full of sleeping children. Fitzpatrick need hardly mention the obvious retort – “yeah, but I’m an amazing flyer so no chance of that” –

relying instead on the lack of harm to anyone that actually arose.

A hundred dollar fine was issued, Fitzpatrick promptly paid up, and you might think that that would be the end of the matter.

And if you actually did think that, then you’d perhaps not clocked the kind of chap we’re dealing with here.

Whilst WE know that Fitzpatrick’s story is true, others were not necessarily inclined to take it at face value, and might, in circumstances in which alcohol has been taken, be tempted to express such doubts in blunt terms.

So it was that in October 1958, Fitzpatrick was in a bar holding forth about how cool he’d been one night in 1956, when the other chap called him out on his account. You’re such a hotshot? I’ll drive you to Teterboro and you can just prove it! How about that?

Fitzpatrick’s acceptance of this challenge was so inevitable it hardly seems necessary to say that he was all over it like a habitual drunkard with an eye for risky late night aeronautics.

Out to Teterboro. Plane borrowed. Plane landed outside bar on Amsterdam and 187th Street. In your FACE, doubters.

And in to jail, Fitzpatrick. Second time around, he saw the inside of a jail cell for six months.

This time, Fitzpatrick didn’t blame “engine trouble” – he blamed “the lousy drink.” But as every wear criminal law advocate knows, intoxication isn’t a defence, although it can be a helpful explanation.

It’s one of those stories that serves to show the impact of the too-swift passage of time. Newspapers of the day tell the tale with a certain element of sneaking admiration for a man who’d now inevitably be pilloried

by everyone from safety firsters to the social media types who seem to enjoy nothing more than somehow overcoming their shyness in order to talk about their anxiety, which Fitzpatrick would no doubt have triggered.

Sure, he shouldn’t do such things. Obviously. Nobody should. It was totally wrong & irresponsible. But it is worth noting the societal change in a relatively short period of time from a culture that knew that but also could tip a wink at the lunatic character to one that can't.