Asteroid Impact in Nubian Desert Tracked

Science News is reporting on a first of its kind: an asteroid that was tracked all the way to its impact on Earth.

The asteroid was apparently about the size of a car (hmm, would that be a Hummer or a mini-Cooper?) and since the trajectory was well-tracked, the impact site in northern Sudan was found an much of the debris recovered for study.  The ony scary part is this sentence:

Scientists got lucky when they spotted 2008 TC₃ using the
Catalina Sky Survey telescope atop Mount Lemmon north of Tucson, Ariz.
“It just so happened that the asteroid was coming from the direction
that the telescope was pointed in,” says astronomer and study coauthor
Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

Most asteroids are not seen at all.  Of course, most are smaller than this one and completely disintegrate passing through the atmosphere.  A toaster-sized asteroid would not make it to the surface.  According to the story, asteroids the size of 2008 TC₃ impact about once a year.  Of course, most impact uninhabited areas (including the ocean).  The story does not indicate the size of the recovered fragments.  And, as they rightly point out, a larger asteroid would be detectable sooner;  2008 TC₃ was spotted only 19 hours before impact.

It’s that "it just so happened" to be looking in the right direction part that bothers me