We report measurements of the effects of a melting ice surface on the hydrodynamic drag of ice-shell-metal-core spheres free falling in water at a Reynolds of number Re~2×10^{4}-3×10^{5} and demonstrate that the melting surface induces the early onset of the drag crisis, thus reducing the hydrodynamic drag by more than 50%. Direct visualization of the flow pattern demonstrates the key role of surface melting. Our observations support the hypothesis that the drag reduction is due to the disturbance of the viscous boundary layer by the mass transfer from the melting ice surface.