35-pound hunk of metal that damaged car in Portland may have fallen from plane
May 1—A 35-pound metal rod smashed into a vehicle in the Casco Bay Lines parking lot in Portland Wednesday night, and police believe it might have dropped from an airplane.
Casco Bay Lines deckhand Cam Malette was working on a ferry when he got a call around 10 p.m. from a co-worker who told him the rear window of his Volkswagen Jetta had been shattered and was on the sidewalk in pieces, he said in an interview Thursday.
"How could that possibly happen?" Malette recalled thinking. Then his second thought: "How am I going to tell my parents?"
When the 21-year-old deckhand arrived in the parking lot near 56 Commercial St., which was empty except for two other vehicles, he found the car's rear window shattered and the rear hatch crumpled. That's when Malette saw the solid metal rod, which was as thick and long as his forearm.
He then called his cousin, Portland police Lt. Zack Finley, to report the damage.
The two determined that, "based on the damage and location," the piece of metal may have fallen from an airplane, said Portland police spokesperson Brad Nadeau. The area near the waterfront is in the flight path of some planes going to and from the Portland International Jetport just up the Fore River.
The Federal Aviation Administration has been notified and is investigating the incident, Nadeau said. A spokesperson from the FAA did not respond to inquiries about the incident Thursday afternoon.
Malette said he talked with some people from the FAA, but because he wasn't there to witness the incident, he can only guess what happened. Casco Bay Lines security cameras in that lot weren't working at the time the object crashed into his car, he said, but he and his cousin thought the only way it could have done so much damage was if it fell from the sky.
All of the car's lights still worked, so Malette was able to drive the car home. But he has to replace the bumper and entire rear hatch.
"I wanted to be upset, but I'm thankful it hit my car as opposed to someone walking," he said.
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