Jeff Mills Coastal Vacations Club Blog

You couldn’t make it up.  Imagine sitting in your garden, enjoying some nice weather, listening to the birdsong, maybe sipping a cool drink, when all of a sudden a grapefruit-sized chunk of ice comes hurtling at speed from the heavens and lands smack dab in your lap.  I guess there are worse things that could come flying at you from the clouds, but a giant ice cube is enough to ruin your day, I reckon.

That’s just what happened to a pensioner who happens to live under the flight path of Bristol International Airport, as recently reported by BBC News’ The Magazine.  A large chunk of ice apparently broke off of a plane passing overhead and hit David Gammon on the leg as he chilled in his garden.  He received a nasty bruise on his thigh, but thankfully that was the extent of his injuries.

The airport has investigated the matter and found no proof the ice came from any of its planes (of course not), and air traffic controllers even calculated that it could have come from another plane flying within a five mile radius; not exactly comforting news.

According to Richard Taylor of the Civil Aviation Authority, such incidents usually result from ice forming due to water leaking from a plane’s ventilation unit, and not from passengers flushing toilets.  “The misconception is that a toilet has been flushed and the remnants, when falling to earth, have frozen,” said Mr Taylor.  “But toilets are not emptied until the plane is grounded.”

He went on to explain that water leaks from the plane’s gulley pipes, seeps outside the aircraft and freezes quickly.If too much ice forms, it obviously has no place to go but down.  I’m glad to have the explanation, but a little unnerved that ANYTHING is leaking on a plane I might be travelling in.

Mr Taylor also said that most ice breaks up on descent, so it’s extremely rare for someone to be hit by one of these frozen missiles.  Out of three million flights in the UK last year, there were only 35 reported cases of ice falling.  In the 40 years since the Civil Aviation Authority has been recording such incidents, only five cases of a person being hit have been noted.

There have, however, been many instances of falling ice chunks damaging buildings and cars.  Makes you wonder how many people have found damage to their vehicle after using a Bristol Airport parking service and blamed the car park staff, never considering that the dents could have been the result of blocks of ice falling from planes overhead.

If I was Mr Gammon, I wouldn’t care about the rational explanation for it, I’d still be wary of sitting in the back garden.

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