Calif. Man Wins Plane Toilet Ice Lawsuit

[ShawnC]

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - A Santa Cruz man won a suit against American Airlines alleging that one of the company's planes released two chunks of toilet waste, known euphemistically as "blue ice," onto the skylight his boat.

After the chunks came crashing down and damaged his boat, Ray Erickson tracked down the plane — American Airlines Flight 1950 — and sued in small claims court.

He receive'd the court's ruling in the mail Friday. A judge ordered the airline to pay him $3,236 - almost the entire amount Erickson had sought.

Mike Fergus, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, was surprised at the decision.

"I'll be darned," said Fergus, who hadn't heard of any similar suits succeeding before.

The airline has 30 days to appeal the ruling. Airline officials could not be reached to comment Saturday.

Don't know what's funnier Blue Ice (euphemism for frozen block of $hit) or someone from the FAA being surprised enough to say "I'll be darned."

Though one wonders how he knew which airline it was let alone which flight.

 

[crash-proof]

I remember this story couple years back when an Alitalia flight dumped (pun intended) a chuck of blue ice that fell on a car in some remote village in the alps. Can you imagine that thing melting afterwards? Mama mia!!!

 

[chperplt]

After the chunks came crashing down and damaged his boat, Ray Erickson tracked down the plane — American Airlines Flight 1950 — and sued in small claims court.

How could he "track" down the specific airplane? It's not like he lives in an area that doesn't see much air traffic.

 

[crash-proof]

Maybe he has one of em budweiser jet-powered boats. Even then, don't think they go much over 200mph. (experts?)

 

[Av8trxx]

Ewwwww.....I remember a story about some stupid woman who put some Blue Ice in her freezer thinking it was a meteor that fell in her yard or something. She called the news and later found out what it really was! Yuck.

 

[cl-65link]

This happened not to long ago in eastern Florida. I believe a house in Ormond Beach was hit, probably from a flight en-route to MCO from Europe. As I recall, the "blue comet" crashed through the roof. Luckily nobody was home. I can just see the headlines now, "man killed by flying frozen excrement, photos at 11:00".

 

[dmspilot00]

...or...

Female feared fatally fractured from fallen frozen feces

 

[KC-10 Driver]

It can't be dumped.

What most likely happened is that it seeped out of the holding tank and slowly built up around the lav servicing access panel while the aircraft was at altitude.

When enough of the blue stuff built up, or when the airplane began its descent, the chunk of blue stuff broke away and fell to earth.

 

[Typhoon1244]

Eastern was involved in a suit like this years and years ago...the chunk actually caved in part of some poor guy's roof.

(Don't know how he decided it was Eastern and not somebody else...maybe you can tell by the smell...?)

 

[Av8trxx]

Hmm, I was under the impression airliners couldn't "dump" their "waste" overboard like that. Nevermind it freezing.

True, it can't be dumped inflight. However, if the plug at the bottom of the holding tank isn't seated properly or needs replacing, the 'blue juice' can seep out the breaks in the seal and drain down into the dump chute. Normally it's all contained behind another cap covering the discharge chute, but sometimes that leaks too. Especially if someone 'charged' the dump chute (then refilled the tank) so that when the cap is opened at the next city, the ramper gets a blue bath. Ewwww.

Leaky toliets can be a serious problem. AA had a chronic one a few years back. It would always run out of water at altitude because it was seeping out. (MX always refilled & inspected it after write ups, but found no leak.) Repeated freezings of blue water that drained back into crevices in a tail mounted engine pylon eventually caused a fracture and the engine separated inflight!

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001214X36226&key=1

 

[cl-65link]

It would be possible to narrow- down the suspect aircraft if the person was at home when this happened. All that would be required would be to pull the radar data, and if the victim would be able to pinpoint the exact time it happened, it would go a long way to solving the mystery. In the Ormond Beach case, the Ormond VOR happens to be on one of the arrivals to MCO.