Taxi driver suspected meteor strike after large ball of ice crashed through roof
Great balls of ice: Ahmed Halhal suspected his home had been hit by a meteorite
A TAXI driver from Golders Green said he thought he was the unfortunate victim of a meteorite when a ball of ice crashed through his roof on Tuesday morning.
Ahmed Halhal, 44, was watching television in his living room when he heard a “big noise and a bang” coming from his bedroom.
The father-of-two, of Clitterhouse Road, went to investigate and found significant damage to the ceiling.
He said: “I thought: 'This is strange. Maybe the ceiling just gave way.' Then I went to the loft and saw the tiles of the roof were damaged and found four or five rocks of ice. When I saw them I thought 'heavens, where did they come from?' At the same time a neighbour was knocking on the door. She said she looked outside and saw some ice as well.
“I thought it must have come from the sky because of the damage it caused; it came very fast. If it had happened out on the street in a market place or something it would have killed someone.
“I did have a thought it might have been a meteorite because I had seen on the news about the meteorite in Russia. In the end I realised that it must have come from a plane because there are so many planes passing over us.”
He added: “I've still got some of them in the freezer as a souvenir.”
Social landlord Barnet Homes, which owns the property, carried out emergency repairs on the roof on Tuesday and will complete work on the property on Friday. A spokeswoman said it was investigating the cause of the incident, but that it suspected ice had come from an aeroplane flying overhead.
“Blue ice” is frozen sewage material that has leaked from commercial flight waste systems and frozen and is so called because of the blue colour of the disinfectant.
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said it had logged the incident and would investigate to see if it can identify the airline responsible.
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