The “meteor” that fell on the village of Fazilpur Badli was actually a mass of waste discharged from a civil aircraft and frozen.
A strange object on January 19 fell into a wheat field in the village of Fazilpur Badli in Haryana state, India, creating a small hole in the ground that people mistook for a meteorite, Mirror reported.
The object that fell on the village of Fazilpur Badli made many people think it was a meteorite. (Photo: Mirror).
Some villagers took the fragments of the “meteorite” to bring home as souvenirs.
Scientists from the Indian Meteorological Service also went to the village and took samples for analysis. The results showed that this is a block of “blue ice” , a term used to refer to human waste combined with bleach, which fell from a civil aircraft and froze because of the low temperature at high altitude.
“This object has been identified as human waste dropped from an aircraft,” said Vivek Kalia, an official at the Haryana Urban Development Authority.
An Indian court has ruled that airlines will be fined to compensate for environmental damage if aircraft waste falls from the air. Airlines can be fined around 3 if caught discharging waste mid-flight.
Planes will be subject to unscheduled checks and fines if the waste tanks are found to be empty upon landing. The court ordered the aviation regulator to act after receiving evidence from a retired military official that his home in Delhi was regularly hit by debris from crashed planes.