Unidentified debris falls from sky

A safety team from Whiteman Air Force Base recovered a six-inch piece of debris in Cole Camp that may have fallen from an aircraft, according to a base spokesman.

1st Lt. Candace Cutrufo, a Whiteman public affairs officer, said by telephone Saturday night that the team had recovered an object from private property along Butterfield Road in Cole Camp, and had taken it back to the base to begin trying to identify it.

Maj. Joseph P. DellaVedova, the public affairs chief for Whiteman’s 509th Bomb Wing, confirmed by telephone Saturday afternoon that Whiteman personnel were contacted by a caller who reported that some kind of debris had fallen on their property.

DellaVedova said no 509th aircraft flew on Saturday, and an initial inspection of aircraft from the 442nd Fighter Wing, which is also stationed at Whiteman, turned up no damage.

“At this point we’re just trying to be good neighbors and assist the investigation to see if we can help identify what it is, what it hit, and where it came from,” DellaVedova said.

Cutrufo said members of the 509th Safety Office, and the 509th Foreign Object Debris office responded to the call.

A member of the board that governs the Lincoln Municipal Airport, Jim Bentch, said there were no reports of damage to aircraft participating in a fly-in at the airfield, about ten miles from Cole Camp.

Bentch said there were no planned flights through the day over Cole Camp, but "it is possible a plane flying in or out may have flown over the town."

"At this point, we have no reason to believe that it came from any of our planes," Bentch said.