'I nearly died when huge ice block fell from plane and tore £12k hole through my roof'

A criminologist claims she nearly died after a block of ice plummeted thousands of feet from the sky and crashed through her roof.

Dr Carla George has been left with a £12,000 hole in her home from the frozen chunk, which she suspects fell from a landing plane. She had been on a work call at home when she was startled by the almighty crash. Initially thinking some boxes had tumbled over in her attic, Dr George went to investigate only to find the hole in her roof and the ice block on the floor. The 45-year-old from Banbury, Oxfordshire, summoned the fire brigade who told her the ice likely came from a plane preparing to land at Heathrow.

Now Dr George has been told it'll cost her thousands to fix the problem. "I went up to the attic and saw ice everywhere and I was confused where it had come from," she said. "It was like something from a movie. I was in shock. My neighbour rang the doorbell and said, 'Do you know there's a hole in the roof?'. It was so unusual. I thought it was some sort of explosion when I got up there."

Despite being told that the most probable cause of the damage was falling debris from a plane, Dr Carla, a field researcher in criminology who recently completed her PhD, says she didn't hear anything that day. She said: "We do have planes flying over but I didn't hear any that day and neither did my neighbour, so that was really surprising.

"My neighbour said that he used to work on planes and a suitcase once fell out." Although temporarily covered over with a tarpaulin sheet, Dr Carla's roof will need a full repair which will thankfully be covered by her insurance.

She said: "The blocks of ice took a whole day to melt and then we had the insurers come round. The roofers put in a temporary fix the next day and we are waiting for surveyors to asses the damage and see what can be done for the restoration work.

"At the moment we still have the hole in the inner ceiling - you can see the lining from the outside. At least it's all covered by the insurance. And at least it didn't hit any other rooms and there were no injuries - just me being shocked and trying to process the whole thing!"

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said 25 'ice fall' incidents are reported every year from 2.5million flights. Retired Concorde pilot Captain John Hutchinson, 86, said Dr George's problem wouldn't be the first instance. "As to why the ice falls - well you don't flush toilets overboard so to speak, so it won't be from a loo. To me the most likely scenario is water in the undercarriage bay when the aircraft took off which formed into ice and would stay as a block of ice whilst cruising at 35,000ft.

"And as the airplane came into land at 3,000 or 4,000ft, the undercarriage would be selected down and it would fall out - that would be one solution. It's certainly possible that it would have been caused by a block of ice that fell off an airplane."