A Long Island couple believes that sludge from an airplane lavatory fell on them while they were outside on the deck enjoying the freakishly mild February weather Thursday night. "A plane was coming over," Artie Hughes tells 1010 WINS. "Next thing you know [my wife] says ‘Oh my God it’s raining.’ I said ‘No it’s not'." Hughes and his wife say they were covered in odorless sludge right when a plane flew over their home in Malverne, which is in the JFK flight path.
Hughes says he saw some "black oil" on his wife's face. "I walked around and I looked and said ‘Oh my God.’ There was quarter-sized, nickel-sized, dime-sized drops all over my deck, my barbecue, my table." So the Hugheses called the police, and Hughes says the responding officer called "either the Port Authority or the FAA and said ‘Yeah, it looks like there was an incident. Some lavatory excrement had leaked out'."
FAA spokesman Jim Peters tells us that investigators are going to the Hughes's home on Wednesday to examine the substance. Asked if this sort of thing is common, Peters told us, "When this has happened, it's usually chemically treated waste that can sometimes leak out of the outer skin of the aircraft and clump up and break off. If it's that, we will try to determine what plane this occurred with." Dave Matthews better hope he has an airtight alibi.
Former Malverne Civic Association president Peter Robideau tells Newsday the incident underscores the village's problem with low-flying aircraft, which routinely rattle his house when flying overhead. "They're low, they're big, they're loud," Robideau declares. "And the cargo flights will wake you out of bed at 3 a.m." Yup, and then they shit on your house!
