Plane Dumps Human Waste on Man While Flying Over His Yard: 'A Really Horrible Experience'

A man and his garden were "splattered in a very unpleasant way" after human waste was dropped from an aircraft in the U.K.

The incident took place in mid-July in the town of Windsor, southeast England. The town is only eight miles from Heathrow, one of the world's busiest airports.

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."

The man has not been identified.

She added: "Hopefully it never happens again to any of our residents."

Aircraft store sewage in tanks and the contents are usually disposed of once the plane has landed. The contents freeze at high altitude.

John Bowden, a councillor for Eton & Castle who was also at the aviation forum's virtual meeting on October 14, said the incident was a "one in a billion chance."

He suggested that warm weather in July could have made the sewage leak out as a liquid, rather than as a frozen block.

The name of the airline has not been released, but Davies said it was "based a very long way away from here."

She added that the upset resident had contacted the airline, which initially denied that its plane had been involved. However, the airline later acknowledged that the incident had taken place after the man identified the aircraft via a route tracking app.

Davies said the resident had decided not to pursue an insurance claim.

Whitfield parish councillor Geoff Paxton, who has worked at airports for four decades, told the aviation forum: "We used to have problems with blue ice [frozen human waste and blue disinfectant] on arrivals, but that was because those toilets used to leak."

Such incidents were now extremely rare, he added, but "it could well be that something came out of the vent at low altitude," because air pressure is reduced when the aircraft is taking off or landing.

Newsweek has contacted the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority for comment.

In November 2018, a block of ice crashed through the roof of a house in Bristol, southwest England. Jamie Shean said he was "lucky to be alive" after he heard the object smashing into his bedroom. He suspected the ice block had been dumped by a plane.