911 caller thinks an Army vet’s Halloween display is a real plane crash

PICKERINGTON, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) - There’s a Halloween display so scary that somebody called 911.

It’s a plane crash punk that is turning heads on Wagram Road.

Violet Township Fire and the Ohio State Highway Patrol responded to a home with an upside-down ultra-light in the front yard. The first responders quickly realized it was a Halloween decoration.

In the cockpit is a skeleton and his passenger is a witch.

Army veteran Delbert Holsinger said he has been storing the aircraft in a trailer for years and decided to have some fun with it.

Holsinger, 85, retired from the Air National Guard and has always loved aviation. He was surprised to hear somebody thought the mock crash was an emergency. “It’s realistic,” he laughed. “Anybody with any sense...in daylight there they can see what kind of shape it’s in.

It wouldn’t lay there for all the meat to fall off his frame.

They come through here 70 miles an hour so they don’t have much time to check it out.”

Neighbors said often people do a double-take when they see the plane.

Jake Johnson,12 said he and his twin sister knew Holsinger had an ultralight. “It’s funny too. It’s usually in the back and when we drove by it we were like why is it out there? And then we saw the skeleton in it.”

Piper Johnson said she can’t believe somebody called 911 about it.

“I think it is actually funny that somebody did that because it’s just a decoration.”

Holsinger has three children, three grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. He has another prank set up in some woods behind his house. It’s a nine-foot dinosaur skeleton that has a motion sensor, lights and roars.

Holsinger said he is not quite done with the Halloween display in his yard. He wants to add a witch on a broom, so it looks like the plane ran into her in the sky.

There is a creepy side to the Halloween display. “The guy who designed this aircraft here got killed demonstrating it for sale,” said Holsinger.

Holsinger has collected several planes and enjoys tinkering with them.

He hopes passersby like his Halloween humor.

“They want to forget their concerns and things like that and then let people laugh and have a good time.”