The owner of an Austrian castle said he discovered a tire that belonged to an airplane in his duck pond, the Austrian Times reported.

Niklas Salm-Reifferscheidt, who lives about 20 miles from an airport, initially thought he found a tractor's tire when he found the enormous wheel outside his castle Schloss Steyregg in Linz.

But the wheel turned out to belong to an airplane that was most likely flying to or from the nearby Linz-Hoersching international airport.

"From the dimensions of the wheel, it was a giant bird, probably a Boeing 747," the castle owner said according to The Local, Austria's News in English.

Salm-Reifferscheidt, whose castle dates back to A.D. 777, said he contacted airport authorities about the lost wheel. He said he knew that planes were always traveling back and forth over his castle, but he never expected one of its tires to fall out of the sky and onto his property.

"I guess it was incredibly lucky that no one was hurt, because it would have easily gone through the roof of any house," Salm-Reifferscheidt said according to the Austrian Times.

A unit within the country's Ministry of Transport is investigating the incident. Officials are confident the tire's serial number can be used to match the aircraft and flight it came from, The Local reported.

An experienced pilot told The Local that at least two planes worldwide lose a tire every year.

In January, a small single-engine plane lost one of its wheels mid-flight but was able to land safely at an airport in Southern California. A more serious incident last year ended with six people in the hospital after the front wheel of a Southwest Airlines plane collapsed upon landing.