Document text
Oil spill off plane not likely While driving on California Highway 1 north of San Francisco this summer, oil suddenly covered our windshield. The oil did not come from our car. It seemed to come the sky. There was just a small amount of oil on the hood and none on the front of the car. There were no cars or trucks in sight, and no overpasses. We would have had a wreck if we hadn't been able to stop immediately and it was a mess to clean. Has anyone ever heard of oil falling from airplanes? -- Lois H., Talent We've heard of frogs and fish falling out of the sky, Lois, but never oil. Rick Hamilton, an aircraft mechanic at Logan & Reavis Aviation in Medford, says any quantity of oil that fell from an airplane in flight would disperse instantly in the air. He says it would be far more likely to win the lottery than be struck by an oil ball from an airplane. "Any piece of machinery uses lubricants," he says, "and it's certainly possible for an airplane to emit a small quantity of oil." But if an aircraft lost, say, a quart of oil at a speed of 150 mph, the oil would scatter into a fine mist long before it ever reached the ground. "You're not going to have an oil ball fall several thousand feet from an airplane," says Hamilton. "If that happened to me," he says, "I'd be looking alongside the road for some boys playing a prank." Hamilton says other things do fall from airplanes. Toilet valves sometimes malfunction in commercial airliners, allowing sewage to drip onto the exterior surface of the aircraft. At high altitude the sewage freezes. Sometimes a block of frozen sewage falls off the aircraft and plummets to earth. You can be glad that didn't hit your windshield. (Send your questions to "Since You Asked," Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; or by fax to (541) 776-4376; or by e-mail to: [email protected] Please include your name, address and phone number for verification.) Today's News Index Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA