First time ever!
The sky was falling on the home of a Florida family, or seemed to be when a cylindrical object crashed through the roof of the family’s house at the end of its firey journey from orbital space. The law firm of Cranfill Sumbner, acting on behalf of the family, has now filed a claim against NASA for the incident and issued a press release on the matter.
Alejandro Otero, the homeowner behind the claim, retained legal help after a space object smashed through the ceiling in his family’s Naples, Florida home on March 8 2024. According to the statement issued by the law firm, the space object inflicted property damage, but did not injure any people. Mica Nguyen Worthy, the Cranfill Sumner attorney who is managing the Oteros’ case, is seeking compensation for property damage not covered by homeowner’s insurance.
In the press release, Worthy says that space debris is a serious and real issue, and predicts that problems related to it will increase due to the uptick of orbital traffic in recent years. Her clients, Worth says, are seeking compensation adequate to repair the damage and to make up for the stress and disruption that the space debris crash has inflicted in their lives. The nearness of the miss, where personal injury and death is concerned, is cause for worry. Had the cylinder struck a few feet in either direction along its trajectory, somebody could have been killed or seriously injured.
Worthy noted that the law holds the nation state which launched the object absolutely liable under treaties that deal with international incidents. She is pushing for NASA to submit to these same standards for incidents occurring within the United States. The US would be held liable for such an incident if it occurred abroad, Worthy says, under the terms set forth in the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects. All she seeks for her clients, she said, is for NASA to decline to hold itself to a different standard for domestic incidents.
