WEST PALM BEACH — A Palm Beach County roofing company has volunteered to repair a softball-size hole that was left in a West Palm Beach woman's garage roof after an airplane maintenance part fell through it this month.
Homeowner Margaret Bagley, who lives directly under Palm Beach International Airport's flight path, said she called Hight Roofing to inquire about the cost of repair this morning.
Owner Gary Hight offered to fix it for free. In exchange he has asked Bagley to make a donation to one of his family's favorite charities, Victory Junction - a camp for children with health care needs.
"This is a win-win all the way around," Bagley said. "If the (part) hadn't come through this man wouldn't be doing a favor for me, and I wouldn't be passing it forward."
Federal Aviation officials confirmed this afternoon that a piece of metal that fell through a West Palm Beach woman's roof was an aircraft maintenance part used to lift airplanes.
The part, called a jack pad, was manufactured by McDonnell Douglas, the aircraft manufacturer that produces the DC-9 and MD-80 series of jets, FAA Spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said.
It does not attach to aircraft, and FAA officials are still trying to determine how it may have fallen from an airplane.
"It's a mystery as to how this part wound up presumably on the aircraft and then falling," Bergen said.
An FAA flight standards official from the agency's Fort Lauderdale office visited Margaret Bagley's home late Wednesday and took the part with him for further analysis.
Bagley, who lives under Palm Beach International Airport's flight path, went into her detached garage on Feb. 13 to do laundry and found a softball-size hole near the roof's peak. On the ground, just below the hole, she found a round piece of metal that looked like the ball of a trailer hitch.
She did a Google computer search on the part number on the piece and discovered it was part of an airplane jack. The jack pad is part of a fitting on a device used to lift aircraft for maintenance.
Bagley said she believes the part fell between Feb. 6 and Feb. 13. She normally goes into the detached garage only on Wednesdays to do laundry.
Bergen said the FAA continues to investigate the incident. But the week-long timeframe makes it more difficult to determine which airplane the part may have fallen from, she said.
"Ms. Bagley reported that she only enters the garage on Wednesdays, so we have no way of knowing exactly when the part fell," Bergen wrote in an e-mail to The Palm Beach Post. "If we had a narrower timeline, we could identify all MD-80/DC-9 aircraft that flew in that area at that time and determine whether the part came from any of those aircraft."
This month's incident was the second time airplane parts have fallen on her property.
In 1999, a jet engine exploded just after Continental flight 1933 took off. The explosion forced the flight back to the airport and rained hundreds of parts on a five-block area. The pieces ranged in size from 200 pounds to a fraction of a pound, and Bagley said an 18-inch-long piece landed on her husband's truck.
Leaders of nearby neighborhoods say the incident shows the dangers of adding more air traffic above their neighborhoods. They have opposed plans to add a second commercial runway at the airport.
"The airport is talking about expansion, but they are not talking about safety," said Jose Rodriguez, president of the Vedado neighborhood. "Who is doing inspections of these planes? You let these planes up with a part that is missing. That is a safety issue."
Source: PalmBeachPost.com
