A family in south suburban Lynwood made a surprising discovery Saturday night when they returned home and found a helicopter wheel hanging from the ceiling of their bathroom.
Linda Dian, 55, said she returned just before 7 p.m. to her two-story, single-family home at 20019 Marlin Court and was watching TV when her daughter began yelling upstairs.
“She started screaming, ‘momma, momma come here now,’” Dian said. “I was scared. I thought something had happened to one of my grandkids.”
What she found upstairs stunned her — a small wheel that looked like it was from an airplane poking through the ceiling of the bathroom.
“I saw the wheel hanging in the ceiling of my bathroom. There was plaster everywhere,” Dian said.
She said the wheel must have struck the home while they were out earlier in the evening. None of the neighbors she had talked to Saturday night said they heard anything.
A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said the part appeared to be a dolly wheel assembly from a helicopter. The agency was still working to determine when and from which aircraft the part fell from Saturday night.
Dian, who lives blocks away from Lansing Municipal Airport, said she had long feared something like this would happen to her home.
“I am so scared and nervous right now,” Dian said. “I’ve been dreading this. I’ve always had a fear for a plane hitting the house. What if it had been later in the night?”
A spokesperson for the airport did not respond to a request for comment Saturday night.
Dian called the police and a crew from the Lynwood Fire Department was sent to the home. Firefighters pushed the wheel back out through the roof and carried it away.
“They’re just trying to figure out who this belongs to at this point,” Dian said. “I’m so thankful no one was hurt.”