A federal investigation has determined that damage to two homes on Long Island was not caused by debris from a plane known as "blue ice," the Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday.
The roofs of two homes on Home Street in Valley Stream were damaged early Sunday morning when something tore through the strong roofs. Blue ice is the name for liquid waste from a plane that freezes at a higher altitude and melts upon its descent.
An FAA spokeswoman, Arlene Salac, said pilots do not have a way to dispose of any sewage mid-flight, but there have been instances of blue ice dropping because of a leak.
Salac added that the damage to the two homes in Valley Stream did not come from a plane, and the FAA, which sent investigators on two separate occasions, has ruled their investigation inconclusive.
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She also said there weren't any planes within three miles of the site at the time the damage incurred.
The administration does not know what caused the damage, but will not investigate further since they've ruled out the damage being caused by a plane.
Lois Farella, 83, said she and her 86-year-old husband, Frank, were jolted out of bed early Sunday by a noise that she said "sounded like an explosion."
The damage to her roof, and the roof of her neighbor, Ann Grace, will cost the homeowners thousands of dollars to repair, they said.
An area roofer, Bryan Lanzella, said the holes in both roofs are so large -- and the material it tore through so strong -- that he feels it could have only been caused by something falling, at a very fast rate, from above.
"It would have been impossible for anything else to make a hole of this kind in this roof," Lanzella said. "It was literally like someone punched a hole in the roof."
Farella said planes taking off and landing at nearby John F. Kennedy Airport fly over their homes quite often, and doesn't think it could have been anything else.
But Salac said flight paths from Sunday show there weren't any planes flying within a three mile radius of the homes, ruling out the homeowners' theory.
Grace told NBC 4 New York she still feels the debris came from an airplane, and that the FAA "needs to be accountable" for the damage.
