Photo: Maine Department of Public Safety
The “sleeve-like object” struck the ground roughly six to eight feet from Capitol Police Screener Craig Donahue, who was walking outside the entrance at the time, added Clancy. Two other individuals witnessed the incident, but fortunately nobody was injured.
There was no sign of “significant damage” to the walkway the object landed on, according to thePortland Press Heraldand theAssociated Press.
“It definitely shocked him,” Clancy told the AP.
“It probably would have left a pretty good mark,” Donahue said of the “sleeve-like object” during an interview on CNN’sNew Day, calling it “a pretty good wake-up call.”
After immediately notifying the Augusta State Airport and the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA “made awareness notifications to flights that were over the Capital area at the time,” Clancy said in the news release.
Clancy went on to note that the FAA believed the part was “likely from a large airliner on an international route.”
An FAA spokesperson confirmed to PEOPLE in a statement that “the FAA is aware of the report and is investigating.”
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As of Tuesday morning, the FAA has “not been able to isolate the actual source” of the object, Clancy told PEOPLE in a separate statement.
However, Clancy said that “we are confident that we have eliminated other possibilities and agree with the FAA that the part has an aircraft origin.
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Though the FAA believes the object originated from a plane in the skies, two aircraft professionals who spoke with thePress Heraldhave their doubts.
“Most aircraft parts are made of aluminum and do not look that worn out,” Paul Cote, an employee at Bangor, Maine’s Twin City Aero Supply, told the outlet.
Greg Jolda, an aviation program coordinator at the University of Maine Augusta, also noted that an aircraft part of that size would have done noticeable damage to both the aircraft it came from and the area it landed on.
“If it came from an airplane, it would not come straight down; it would have had some horizontal velocity to it,” Jolda told thePress Herald. “If a plane were traveling at 80 knots (92 mph), that’s serious.”
source: people.com
