NSW: Dam object may be airplane ice

AAP General News (Australia)
12-09-1999
NSW: Dam object may be airplane ice

By Karen Michelmore

SYDNEY, Dec 9 AAP - The mystery Guyra object may be a huge chunk of ice which fell
off a plane, a space expert said today.

An unidentified object crashed into the water supply dam, on the outskirts of Guyra,
in the New England region of NSW, some time between Monday and midday yesterday creating
a 90 square metre hole.

SKY & SPACE magazine editor Jonathan Nally said the mystery projectile was one of three
things - a hoax, a meteorite or something which had fallen off a plane.

Waste water from toilets on aeroplanes was usually stored up and dumped when the aircraft
landed, Mr Nally said.

However water sometimes leaked from the valves and froze on the side of the plane.

Mr Nally believes the Guyra crater could have been made by a huge chunk of ice, which
had fallen off the side of an aircraft.

"They have found a hole, but they have not found what made the hole yet," Mr Nally said.

"It is a bit of a long shot, but if it had been a meteorite there would have been stacks
and stacks of reports of sonic booms or big fiery lights in the sky.

"There have not been any sightings."

Mr Nally said an ice block crashed into a dam in France several years ago and contaminated
the water, and in Canada a chunk of aeroplane ice crashed through the roof of a house.

He ruled out the possibility it was "space junk", including the missing NASA Mars space probe.

"That is 250 million kilometres away," he said.

"It is exceptionally unlikely to be a piece of space junk."

He said few pieces of space junk were solid enough to make it to the ground because
they usually burned up before hitting Earth.

AAP km/sb/jm/bwl

KEYWORD: DAM ICE

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