Man lucky to be alive after ice chunk 'fell from a Delta Airlines plane' and shattered windshield on his $30,000 car
- Todd Larson, 55, of Taylorsville, Utah claims Delta A1 aircraft flew over his home dropping ice chunk smashing his Dodge Challenger's windshield
- He paid $4,000 in repairs and wants the airline to 'admit its fault'
- Mr Larson said FAA did an investigation and found that at the time of the incident an aircraft matched within two minutes that was overhead
A Utah man is thankful he is alive after he claims a Delta Airlines plane flew over his home when a large chunk of ice dropped from the aircraft shattering his car's windshield.
Todd Larson, 55, told Daily Mail Online he had parked his collectible Dodge Challenger worth $30,000 in the driveway of his Taylorsville home on March 25 when moments later an ice chunk crashed
'It hit so hard that four or five neighbors' car alarms went off,' he told Daily Mail Online.
'It missed going through my roof by only inches and if I had stayed in the car and answered by son’s message about picking him up, that piece of ice would have gone right through my chest.'
Todd Larson said a chunk of ice fell from a plan smashing through the windshield of his Dodge Challenger parked at his Taylorsville, Utah home (above his damaged Dodge Challenger)
He said the FAA did an investigation and found an A1 aircraft that matched within two minutes of the time the incident happened and when the plane was flying above his home
Mr Larson said two minutes later at 1.55am he called police to file the report of the ice chunk falling through his car's windshield, which he believes came from a Delta Airlines A1 aircraft.
He earlier told Fox 13 there were four Delta Air Line flights in the area when the incident occurred, according to a representative for the Federal Aviation Administration.
On Friday afternoon, Mr Larson told Daily Mail Online that the FAA did an investigation and learned that on March 26 an aircraft within two minutes of the time of incident was in the area above his home.
'The investigator cannot give me the flight number but the time it happened matched within two minutes that the plane was overhead,' he said.
'What caught my attention was that as he turned the plane and put his spoiler down, you could hear the engine change, and I looked up and saw that it was a Delta plane.
'Then I heard a huge crash which sounded like a major car accident.'
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Mr Larson said the hole in his windshield is about 12.5 inches in length and that the size of the piece of ice that went through was the size of a cinder block.
'The pieces that broke up were the size of a grapefruit and the smaller ones were the size of golf balls,' he told Daily Mail Online.
Mr Larson has already paid the $4,000 in repairs which included $400 for the windshield and additional costs for replacing his Bluetooth, emergency phone and electric power seat with a heater that were all damaged in the incident.
'When you’re retired and you have to take that big chunk of money out it makes a big difference in what you can do,' he said. 'You try and stay on a budget and you find a car that you really wanted and it’s damaged in this way.
'My insurance says yes they’ll fix it, but my agent explained to me what happens and told me to call FAA, and said if I didn’t make a claim my car would be worthless so I’m at Catch-22.
'I don’t know why they can’t admit what they did.'
Mr Larson said the chunks of ice ranged in size from grapefruits to golf balls (above the chunks of ice following the incident)
He said the hole in his windshield is about 12.5 inches in length and that the glass was shattered into a fine powder
Mr Larson said that he has contacted Delta Airlines and the person in charge of the aircraft has not returned his calls.
He said they are meant to respond within ten working days, and that after giving them 15, he is left fed up.
'They don’t want to recognize it as their mistake that something happened from their plane,' he told Daily Mail Online.
'One of the people who did the preliminary investigation explained that if it was a part or a panel they are responsible, but ice is an "act of God" or cause of nature.
'I said it could be a malfunction in the plane and they won’t recognize that or give me a call back.
'I want them to admit that it was their fault.'
Daily Mail Online calls to Delta Airlines on Friday were not immediately returned.
Mr Larson said he wants Delta Airlines to admit the chunk of ice came from their aircraft. On Friday, he told Daily Mail Online he had not had calls returned from the person in charge of the airbus
An incident similar to Larson's occurred earlier this year, when large pieces of ice slammed down into a man's Chicago living room and bedroom, causing destruction including a massive hole in his ceiling.
John Connors said apart from his cat Oscar being left scared, who was uninjured during the incident in
'I walked in and it looked like a bomb had exploded up in here,' Connors told WLS.
At the time, pilot Scott Batzel told Lake View Patch that he thought the ice dropped through Connors' apartment because of a plane flying overhead.
Batzel said: 'There’s a slight possibility the ice-ball fell from an airplane. It’s not a common
'It’s very likely that many arriving airplanes were operating in that vicinity.'
He added: 'Some airplanes use potable water to flush the lavatory toilets.
'Normally the flushed waste is collected in a storage tank but if the tank was leaking, ice could have built up on the outside of the plane and eventually broke free.'
In January, John Connors (pictured above with his cat Oscar) experienced a similar incident when ice pummeled through his Chicago apartment leaving his cat Oscar scared and a massive hole in his ceiling
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