Published Thursday, August 7, 2003, in the Santa Cruz Sentinel Blue ice verdict reversed; plane not American's By Cathy Redfern Sentinel Staff Writer SANTA CRUZ -- After losing his "blue ice" battle against American Airlines, Ray Erickson has turned his sights on another airline he wants to pay up for damage to his boat. Ray Erickson had sued American Airlines after two chunks of the so- called blue ice crashed through the skylight of his boat He won a $3,236 judgment in June against American, but it was overturned Wednesday. Now Erickson is threatening to take on United Airlines. Erickson, a retired engineer with short-cropped gray hair, wearing sneakers, slacks and a light gray Pasatiempo vest, squared off in Santa Cruz County Superior Court against an American Airlines attorney, engineer and claims analyst. Judge Richard McAdams ruled that while the ice, confirmed as sewage by county health officials, in all likelihood fell from an airplane lavatory, Erickson did not sufficiently prove that it came from the American Airlines plane he said it did. Erickson lives on his Chris Craft boat at the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor and had stepped away to answer the phone when the ice crashed through the skylight about 6:15 p.m. Feb. 10. He tallied up the costs to repair it and headed to court after getting nowhere with the Federal Aviation Administration, which investigates such cases, or with American Airlines, Erickson said, though the airline did offer him half his requested amount two days before his first court date. He refused the offer and won the judgment in small claims court, garnering media attention, including a late-night TV appearance, and raising his hopes to repair his still-damaged boat. He says his insurance does not cover the loss. But though an FAA representative had told him the harbor was under the flight path of planes flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the airliner's analyst testified Wednesday it could be one of several planes coming from a number of cities south or southeast of San Francisco. American engineer Flint Johnson also said that the company always adds a blue chemical to its recycled toilet water to cut down on germs and odor and pointed out that the ice in question was white and brown, not blue. Blue ice forms from leaking lavatory waste that gathers on the outside of the plane, freezing at high altitude and dropping with sufficient agitation or when the plane enters a lower altitude and the ice thaws, Johnson testified. He said the airliner has not received any significant claims for the problem since the FAA cracked down in 1996, issuing a directive to combat the problem. After American Airlines offered detailed flights maps and other information Wednesday, Erickson-- clearly disappointed at the ruling -- studied the information and said it seemed to show a United Airlines plane as the most likely culprit. "I was whipped as I walked out of there," he said, "but then I started looking at things and I think it could be United Airlines, so stand by. I'll get one of them, sooner or later." Another blue ice incident in Santa Cruz occurred in January when a blue chunk busted through the roof of a home on Caledonia Street, striking a teen's bed. The teen's father, Gus Zesati, said Wednesday the roof has been repaired, but that the FAA never got back to him with what flight it might have come from, though they took a report. FAA spokesman Donn Walker said the agency does review such claims and sometimes can pin them to one plane and sometimes cannot. "It can be very difficult to determine what plane it came from," he said. "We don't get a lot of those claims, but we do investigate them." The best slide auction on the net: http://www.auctiontransportation.com/sites/psa188/ Attend the Newark Airport Airline Collectible Show & Sale: http://www.freeyellow.com/members/psa188/page1.html