A man from the United Kingdom was splattered with raw sewage, while he was in his garden. According to the unlucky man, the raw sewage which splattered him and his garden fell from the sky after being dumped by a passing plane.
The rather unusual incident occurred sometime in July in the town of Windsor, southeast England. The town is only eight miles from Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest airports.
The unfortunate incident was relayed by local councillor Karen Davies during a virtual council meeting.
“Local councillor Karen Davies told the aviation forum of the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead that she had been ‘horrified’ to hear of the incident and was looking into it, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
“‘I know a number of incidents happen every year with frozen sewage from planes, but this wasn’t frozen and his whole garden was splattered in a very unpleasant way,” Davies said.
“He was out in the garden at the time, so a really horrible, horrible experience,” she added.
“Davies said the man’s “whole garden and garden umbrellas, and him” were all “covered.”
Ms Davies said the resident had decided not to pursue an insurance claim as it would increase his premium “for the sake of a couple of garden umbrellas” that were also hit by the waste.
The name of the airline has not been shared, but the BBC reported that Ms Davies said the airline was “based a very long way away from here”.
The resident contacted the airline, which denied its plane was in the area, but then later acknowledged the incident after the man was able to identify the aircraft via a flight-tracking app.
Another councillor Geoff Paxton, who has worked at airports for 40 years, called the incident “very rare” and one he had not seen in a long time.
“We used to have problems with blue ice on arrivals but that was because those toilets used to leak.”
Blue ice, in the context of aviation, is frozen sewage material that has leaked mid-flight from commercial aircraft lavatory waste systems. It is a mixture of human biowaste and liquid disinfectant that freezes at high altitudes. The name comes from the blue colour of the disinfectant. Airlines are not allowed to dump their waste tanks in mid-flight, and pilots have no mechanism by which to do so; however, leaks sometimes do occur from a plane’s septic tank.