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FAA To Track Ice Chunk Back To Specific Plane

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Nov 18, 2009 9:48 pm US/Mountain

FAA To Track Ice Chunk Back To Specific Plane

Reporting
Karen Leigh
BRUSH, Colo. (CBS4) ― The Federal Aviation Administration is looking at radar to determine if a chunk of ice that crashed through a Brush woman's home came from an airplane.

It left behind a huge mess on Saturday morning in the small northeast Colorado town, just east of Fort Morgan. The ice ripped a three foot gash in Danelle Hagan's roof and destroyed her kitchen. The chunk also left asbestos everywhere, leaving the home uninhabitable.  

Hagan said it sounded like an explosion when the ice hit. "My kitchen is basically in shambles, just in pieces," said Hagan. 

A chunk of ice the size of a bowling ball slammed through her roof shortly after she and her 9-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, finished breakfast.

"My daughter was terrified just screaming and crying. I think I was scared witless," said Hagan.

Fearing another explosion, Hagan called Xcel. After the phone call, that's when she noticed something unusual in the debris.

"We found one large ice chunk on the kitchen floor," Hagan said.

The Brush Fire Chief said he thinks an airplane caused the damage. He said he knows there's a flight pattern from DIA over the home.

Hagan has stashed the ice chunks in her freezer as evidence until the FAA can investigate. Her home was in a flight path. Radar can show who was in the airspace, but there are many variables. "What altitude were planes at,  what speed were they flying, what was the time," said Mike Fergus with the FAA.

He said it will take a virtual mathmatical equation to get a trajectory, and backtrack to a specific plane. The wind alone could throw things off a lot. "Coming from left to right and right to left, so that's not necessarily a straight down shot,  for a chunk of anything can be blown considerable distance, as much as a half mile to a mile off from where you would think it would normally fall," said Fergus.

In addition to figuring out where the ice came from, Fergus said they also want to know what kind of ice it is. There are two kinds: blue and white. Blue ice would be concerning, indicating a leak.

"Well, what's the big deal, you may have the integrity of the outside of the aircraft may be weakened and you don't want to end up with rapid decompression," said Fergus.

The FAA will analyze the ice to determine its chemical makeup. But for right now, it appears to be white, or rime, ice, which can fall off a plane as it warms up on decent. It typically melts before reaching the ground.

Meantime, homeowner Hagan said she feels lucky.

"If we had been in that kitchen just a couple of minutes before that…it would have been devastating," said Hagan.

Hagan said when she spoke with the FAA,  they told her since ice hit the house, investigators believe they'll be able to pinpoint the exact plane that dropped the ice.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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