Ice Chunk Falls Off Plane, Punches Hole in House’s Roof : Westlake Village Couple Vows to Track Down Accidental Bomber
Their insurance company wants to write it off as a hit-and-run accident, but Charles and Anthea Stiegler are determined to find out which airplane dropped a chunk of bluish-green ice through the roof of their Westlake Village home.
The ice left a hole the size of a basketball in the black concrete tile roof of their four-bedroom house Monday night while the Stieglers were at childbirth class.
Water from the melting ice seeped into the attic and through the master bedroom ceiling onto their $1,200 king-size bed, which the couple bought last week to help make Anthea Stiegler’s last month of pregnancy more comfortable. Damages were estimated at about $2,500.
No One Hurt
The couple said they were relieved that no one was hurt. But, Charles Stiegler said, “It really makes us mad that we’re going to have to pay the insurance company the $500 deductible for the damages because they can’t find which plane did this to us.” Stiegler, 32, is sales manager of a family-owned Mercedes-Benz dealership.
A Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said the Stieglers were victims of the so-called “blue-ice phenomenon.” Water, tinted blue by disinfectant, drips out from an airplane’s lavatory through a leaky seal and freezes on the plane’s exterior at high altitudes, said the spokeswoman, Elly Brekke. When the plane descends, warm air melts the ice, which occasionally falls off, she said.
The FAA receives about four reports annually of such incidents in the 23-million-square-mile region encompassing California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii, Brekke said. The agency has no record of anyone being injured by a falling chunk of blue ice, she said.
The FAA will send an investigator to interview the couple in the hopes of pinpointing which of the 30 or so planes flying over Westlake Village en route to area airports Monday night might have dropped the ice, she said. If the plane is identified, it will be inspected to determine the cause of the problem, and repairs will be made. But it is unlikely that the plane will be identified because the couple was not home when the incident occurred, she said.
‘New Skylight’
On Tuesday, the Stieglers picked scraps of blue-green toilet paper off their lawn, met with insurance agents and repairmen, and recounted their discovery of the damages. Anthea Stiegler, 28, whose first child is due in two weeks, said the couple initially thought that their water pipes were leaking when they saw the dripping water Monday night. Then a plumber Tuesday discovered small clumps of the blue-green ice on the roof and told them to call the FAA.
“I’m calling it our new skylight,” Anthea Stiegler said, pointing to the water-soaked portion of the bedroom ceiling, which had begun to cave in by Tuesday afternoon.
