It\u2019s a bird, it\u2019s a plane, no it\u2019s\u2026 \u201cblue ice,\u201d but was it responsible for damages to at least two homes on Long Island this week?<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Lois Farella and her husband were abruptly awakened by the sound of something crashing through their home on Long Island, New York.\u00a0 “We both woke up to a very loud bang,\u201d Farella told CBS Local New York<\/a> in an interview.\u00a0 Farella said it was about 3:30 a.m. when she and her husband were awakened by the loud noise.\u00a0 “Suddenly, we heard a noise, both of us, and sat up, and said, ‘What was that?’ and we didn’t know.”<\/p>\n Whatever it was, it caused a basketball-sized hole in their roof, and they weren\u2019t the only ones to experience damage.<\/p>\n Next door, Ann Grace\u2019s roof on Home Street was also heavily damaged.\u00a0 After inspecting the damage, roofer Bryan Lanzello found a \u201cbrown, wet stain\u201d in the attic where something had punctured through the shingles and wood.<\/p>\n “It’s hard to understand what could have done this. It had to have come from a plane,” Lanzello told CBS Local New York. “A bird couldn’t have done it.”<\/p>\n The homeowners believe the damage was the result of \u201cblue ice<\/a>\u201d falling from an aircraft. \u00a0“Blue ice” is a mixture of human waste and a blue liquid disinfectant that freezes at high altitude which occasionally leaks from airplanes’ waste tanks.\u00a0 Airlines are not allowed to dump their waste tanks in mid-flight, however, leaks have occurred.<\/p>\n There were at least 27 documented cases of \u201cblue ice\u201d impacts in the U.S. between 1979 and 2003, and \u201cblue ice\u201d was responsible for causing damage to the roof of a home in Chino, California, in 2006.<\/p>\n Because the neighborhood sits in a flight path, the homeowners assumed the damage was the result of a leak in a passing airliner\u2019s facility.\u00a0 The FAA disagrees.\u00a0 After examining the damage on Tuesday, the FAA said they \u201cfound no evidence of blue fluid,\u201d and that at the time of the incident, \u201cthe nearest plane overhead was three miles from these homes.\u201d<\/p>\n The residents aren\u2019t buying the FAA\u2019s story though.<\/p>\n “I’m very frustrated\u2026I feel they’re just going through the motions,” Ann Grace said.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, both homes will need to be repaired, which will likely cost the homeowners substantial money, something the FAA and the airlines don\u2019t want to have to pay out.<\/p>\n It is interesting to note that the FAA\u2019s investigation didn\u2019t acknowledge the stain discovered in Ann Grace\u2019s attic, but instead focused on finding evidence of the blue fluid as well as viewing the radar tracks, which they felt \u201cproved\u201d their case because no airplane was directly over the residences at the time of the incident.<\/p>\n But could \u201cblue ice\u201d still have been responsible for the damages, considering the nearest plane was three miles from the homes? \u00a0According to a 2011 episode about \u201cBlue Ice\u201d on the TV show \u201cMythbusters<\/a>,\u201d wind currents could have altered the trajectory, making it possible that it was the source of the damage to the homes.<\/p>\n