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MONROE — The mystery of a tire that plunged from the sky and crashed through the roof of a home here now has an explanation.
Federal Aviation Administration officials told home owner Mark Brown on Tuesday that the wheel plummeted to earth from a helicopter owned by the Loganville-based Forever Green Landscaping. The wheel is part of equipment used to haul the helicopter around the landing pad during maintenance.
Officials said the equipment should have been removed before flight.
The company's owner told the Athens Banner-Herald he didn't know his helicopter had lost a wheel.
Brown said he and his wife returned home last Wednesday to find pictures knocked to the floor and cracks in a hallway's drywall. He crawled into the attic, where he saw a hole about the size of a loaf of bread in his roof, with a tire peeking through.
"When I crawled up there and saw it pushing through the roof, I thought, 'I must be dreaming,'" Brown, a mechanic, told the Banner-Herald.
The Walton County Sheriff's Office traced serial numbers on the tire to the landscaping company, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said. The FAA is still investigating the incident, she said.
Monroe is 46 miles east of Atlanta.
