(NewsReady.com) – Alejandro Otero’s son contacted him on March 8 and told him that something crashed through his roof. NASA later confirmed the object was space junk. The homeowner is now suing.
On June 21, the law firm Cranfill Sumner issued a press release revealing attorney Mica Nguyen Worthy submitted a claim to NASA to pay for the damages to the Otero home. The space debris left a hole in the homeowner’s roof and his subflooring. The family retained attorneys to help them through the process and to make the claim against the federal agency.
According to the press release, the Oteros are seeking damages for business interruption damages, emotional and mental anguish damages, and non-insured property damage loss. NASA confirmed in April that the debris, an almost two-pound cylindrical-shaped object, that smashed through the Otero home was a metal support used to mount batteries on a cargo pallet for disposal.
The metal support was pushed off the International Space Station and was supposed to burn up in space. One piece, however, survived and caused substantial damage.
Worthy explained that space debris is a legitimate threat these days because of the increase in space traffic over the years. She said the Otero family wants to receive “adequate compensation” to pay for the problems caused by the event. She said they were happy nobody sustained any injuries. She emphasized that the event “could have been catastrophic.” She pointed out that if the debris had landed “a few feet in another direction, there could have been serious injury or a fatality.”
The attorney also said that if the space debris had caused damage to a house or individual overseas, the US would have been responsible for it under the Convention of International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects. So, the law firm wants that standard applied to people living in the US, to make sure they are left whole after an incident like the one the Oteros suffered.
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