Iceberg from sky smashes into lawn
A LARGE block of ice thought to have fallen from an aircraft landed in a family’s front garden with such force that it made the house shake and left a crater in the grass measuring 4ft 6in by 4ft.
Lyndsey Helliwell, 41, said she was grateful her two children were at school rather than playing outside when it happened.
Eleanor Stephen, 41, who works for Mrs Helliwell’s property developer husband Ross, 51, was at their house in Busby, Renfrewshire, when the incident happened on Tuesday morning.
She said: ‘I was sitting at my desk and heard this big boom. I thought it was an explosion and I felt the house shake.
‘When I went downstairs the dog was acting strangely. I looked out of the window and saw a hole with white stuff in it. It was splashed all over the grass.
‘I went out and touched it – I realised it was ice. If anybody had been out in the garden, it could have killed them.’
Mrs Helliwell, a full-time mother to Elise, nine, and Nuala, 13, who was out, returned home around 11am to inspect the damage.
She said: ‘If it had been Saturday or a Sunday the kids could have been out playing football, or my older daughter could have been playing with our dog Harper. It was metres from the house and car. Thankfully no one was hurt.’
About 25 ice falls a year are reported to the Civil Aviation Authority, making them rare with 2.5million flights a year in UK airspace.
Such incidents may occur when ice that has formed on an aircraft at higher altitudes breaks off as it descends into warmer air.