A MAN from Thornbury had the fright of his life when he mistook falling ice from a passing aeroplane for late-night intruders.

Alan Knight was in bed when he heard a loud noise at his Severn Drive home last Wednesday, June 22.

"We’d gone to bed about 11pm and there was this almighty bang outside," he told the Gazette.

"I thought it was someone trying to kick my garage door in but there was nothing there so I went back to bed and thought nothing of it," he said.

The following morning Mr Knight was told by his next-door neighbour there was a hole in his garage roof and some of the tiles had been broken off.

"I thought he was taking the mick but I went into his garden to see my garage roof better and there was the hole and broken tiles in my neighbour’s garden," he said.

"I initially thought someone had tried to break into the garage so I called the police, but then we went into the garage and noticed the lumps of ice."

Mr Knight’s home, like much of Thornbury, is on a flight path for planes travelling between America and the north of England.

The ice left a three- to four-foot hole in the garage roof but did not cause any other damage or injury.

Mr Knight was told by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) that the airlines accept no liability for damage in such cases and he is now consulting with his insurance company.

The CAA says icefalls from aircraft are rare, with only 25 reported each year, compared to the two million flights which fly over the country.

Icefalls usually take place when ice which has formed on the fuselage breaks off as the aircraft descends into warmer air.