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Mystery Object From 'Space' Strikes United Airlines Flight Over Utah (wired.com) 58

Posted by BeauHD from the it's-a-bird-it's-a-plane-it's-probably-space-debris dept.
UPDATE: It may have been a weather balloon...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed Sunday that it is investigating an airliner that was struck by an object in its windscreen, mid-flight, over Utah. "NTSB gathering radar, weather, flight recorder data," the federal agency said on the social media site X. "Windscreen being sent to NTSB laboratories for examination." The strike occurred Thursday, during a United Airlines flight from Denver to Los Angeles. Images shared on social media showed that one of the two large windows at the front of a 737 MAX aircraft was significantly cracked. Related images also reveal a pilot's arm that has been cut multiple times by what appear to be small shards of glass.

The captain of the flight reportedly described the object that hit the plane as "space debris." This has not been confirmed, however. After the impact, the aircraft safely landed at Salt Lake City International Airport after being diverted. Images of the strike showed that an object made a forceful impact near the upper-right part of the window, showing damage to the metal frame. Because aircraft windows are multiple layers thick, with laminate in between, the window pane did not shatter completely. The aircraft was flying above 30,000 feet -- likely around 36,000 feet -- and the cockpit apparently maintained its cabin pressure.
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Mystery Object From 'Space' Strikes United Airlines Flight Over Utah More

Mystery Object From 'Space' Strikes United Airlines Flight Over Utah

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  • weather balloon (Score:5, Informative)

    by pixelpusher220 ( 529617 ) on Monday October 20, 2025 @10:41PM (#65739850)

    https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/... [fosstodon.org]

  • Near as I could tell the idea that this was something from space originated from a random Twitter post by someone who claimed to know someone who was on the flight (but obviously not in the cockpit). Scott Manley covered this pretty thoroughly on his space oriented YouTube channel. But the plane definitely hit something and if it had been hit in slightly a different spot it might have killed a pilot. So serious stuff.

    • It was a weather balloon, pretty much confirmed.

      • No, it was a garbage pod.

        • Whatever it was, maybe its time for specific travel lanes in the sky, for safety and security. Think of drones and ultralites as pedestrians and bicycles, much slower traffic that has a right to be there too. Maybe this object was grandma flying her bird watching drone, doesn't she have just as much of a right to the public airs as folks going on vacation? The jetliners, small planes, helicopters etc have to learn to share the sky, and maybe they should slow down and fly only in limited places as we go on i
          • *files lawsuit, district court rules regulations are racist, issues nationwide injunction*
          • We already have specific travel lanes in the sky. Airlines fly them all the time.

          • Naw, when people send items up in ballon's to those kinds of heights they need to be 'ingest-able' by a plane engine. Theres no need to make 'sky lanes', and the main way we manage air traffic is proximity and elevation, planes fly at different elevations, with thousands of feet of elevation between them.

            Really, everything is OK - if this were axweather balloon, sent up by the weather service, we can know tgat with certainty, since they track them via on-board GPS and telemetry transmitters in the 400 MHz b

    • Sounds like planes are going too fast. Maybe there should be a aviation speed limit for safety? I see planes doing wild maneuvers frequently. Maybe we need a crackdown. Fighter jets with blue lights that can pull over violators. 20mph over what ATC directs = loss of license, with escalating penalties. And we need someone not in bed with the industry, maybe we need diligent watchers like the ATF under previous administrations, where they hire attack dogs that want to end the thing they oversee.

  • Shut down the trash compactors on detention level (Score:4, Funny)

    by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Monday October 20, 2025 @10:47PM (#65739870)
    Come on, Elon.

  • Weather Balloon (Score:5, Informative)

    by fabiomb ( 5315421 ) on Monday October 20, 2025 @11:16PM (#65739902)
    No joy for us: it was a wheather balloon https://arstechnica.com/space/... [arstechnica.com]

  • It wasn't space debris (Score:5, Informative)

    by FallOutBoyTonto ( 6835322 ) on Monday October 20, 2025 @11:34PM (#65739910)
    Apparently it was a weather balloon... Source [arstechnica.com]

    “The mysterious impact of a United Airlines aircraft in flight last week has sparked plenty of theories as to its cause, from space debris to high-flying birds. However the question of what happened to flight 1093, and its severely damaged front window, appears to be answered in the form of a weather balloon. “I think this was a WindBorne balloon,” Kai Marshland, co-founder of the weather prediction company WindBorne Systems, told Ars in an email on Monday evening. “We learned about UA1093 and the potential that it was related to one of our balloons at 11 pm PT on Sunday and immediately looked into it. At 6 am PT, we sent our preliminary investigation to both NTSB and FAA, and are working with both of them to investigate further.”

    • Whose song is that remembered?
      At random, serpenting
      Through fatty coils emerging
      Some other thought is thinking

      This light stands above
      The houses on the ground
      This illumination
      Visited upon the whole land

      Unmarked helicopters hovering
      The Lord is coming soon
      Here comes the super copter
      Here comes the noise it makes
      The demon was an idea
      The demon is awake

      Or scratch mark left across
      The surface of your mind
      This hour, now upon us
      The hour has now arrived

      Unmarked helicopters hovering
      The Lord is coming soon

      Unmarked helicop

  • I was fully expecting somebody to chime in and start bashing the 737 MAX because this one bashed something mid-flight. And then the anti-Boeing rants could follow up after that. I want to read more anti-Boeing rants and 737 MAX death trap posts!

    • Oh! I came here for that. Let me go...

      Trump govt. is obviously trying to shield Boeing here. It's no weather balloon, that's a cooked up story. Obviously, what can you expect from Boeing and that too given that it was a 737. It must be one of those Angle of Attack sensors falling apart and hitting the window. But alas, given how Trump's govt. is trying to shield Boeing, the truth might never come out.

      Yet another incident shows us, don't board a Boeing.

  • Obviously Obvious (Score:5, Funny)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Monday October 20, 2025 @11:44PM (#65739916)

    I'm not saying it was aliens ... but it was aliens.

  • ICYRBRN, an airline upholstery company, reports record earnings on replacment cockpit seating covers. Film at 11!

  • Doubtful it could be space debris.. (Score:3)

    by Vegan Cyclist ( 1650427 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2025 @12:13AM (#65739948) Homepage

    I'm no expert, but wouldn't something entering the atmosphere be traveling at an extremely high velocity?

    If something like that hit a plane, I'd wager it'd blow a hole right through it. Not bounce off the windshield.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Calydor ( 739835 )

      The captain is likely no expert on that matter either, but would have gone through "What the hell can we encounter at this altitude that's big enough to crack the windshield?!" and ended up with nothing coming from below, leaving only stuff coming from above.

    • Video shows a meteor falling past a skydiver. The are fast only at very high altitude. By the time they are down to accessible altitudes, they have reached terminal velocity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    • Not at that altitude. It'd be moving at terminal velocity- likely slower than the plane.
      From the pictures, it looks like the metal frame absorbed some of the impact.

      Beyond that, it appears confirmed that it was a weather balloon. A very light weather balloon, but a weather balloon nonetheless. It appears the majority of its mass is its ballast (sand). It wasn't anticipated that it'd cause as much damage as it did.

  • Alien Weather Balloons (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2025 @01:36AM (#65739990)

    Whenever thereâ(TM)s a UFO, it gets identified as a weather balloon. My question is why are the damn aliens so interested in our weather?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      Whenever thereâ(TM)s a UFO, it gets identified as a weather balloon. My question is why are the damn aliens so interested in our weather?

      Aliens: "Look what these earth monkeys are doing to their environment, it's hilarious!"

  • "SpaceX Launches 10,000th Starlink Satellite"

    "Mystery Object From 'Space' Strikes United Airlines Flight Over Utah"

  • With quotes around "space", is the editor here trying to doubt the existence of this alleged "space" thing ?

    Or did he mean to quote it like so: "from space" ?

    And it was a probably a weather balloon, so not "from space".

  • All objects are "From Space".

  • Latest speculation (by the weather balloon company itself) is a Windborne weather balloon
    https://arstechnica.com/space/... [arstechnica.com]

  • Another possibility is hail, but I'd have to look and see if any convective activity around that airplane.

    Hail doesn't just fall from the bottom of the cloud. Truly vicious storms, those able to punch through the tropopause, can (and have) launched hail out of the top of the anvil, and that top of the anvil is around the tropopause itself, so at least 40,000 ft.

    It is possible hail from the top fell, and got this airplane in the nose. Parent storm could've been hundreds of miles away.

    That impact by the ver

  • Let's take a moment to appreciate the engineering (Score:3)

    by PackMan97 ( 244419 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2025 @07:38AM (#65740312)
    A widnborne weather balloon payload weighing less than 2.4 lbs struck an airplane cruising at 36,000 feet traveling ~500mph and the windshield not only stopped the object, it maintained cabin pressure and integrity allowing the pilots to get the plane down on the ground. This is some seriously impressive engineering.
    • Indeed. Unfortunately the outer layer (glass) exploded, the middle layer (polymer) flexed so much that it shattered the inner layer (glass), and shards of it flew onto the pilot. Cutting his arm and covering the controls in sharp shards of glass. So yes it could have been way worse, but also, it shouldn't have been as bad as it ended up being. A 1 kilogram mass at cruising speed should be tolerated by the windshield without breaking the inner layer and causing injury.

  • Hallelujah! The magic undies work!

  • Interesting air law technicality (Score:3)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2025 @10:19AM (#65740686)

    If they did in fact hit a balloon then it is the aircraft's fault as FAA air laws are that balloons have right of way over any powered aircraft.

    • The law is moot if the balloon is effectively invisible. The brief internet search I did indicated the balloon had neither a transponder nor a radar reflector, which seems irresponsible to me. There may be technical reasons that a reflector is not practical. Perhaps it would have to be too big?
    • Above 18000 ft, (class a airspace) air traffic controll is responsible for maintaining traffic seperation. The government needs to provide better binoculars for controllers :)

  • ... dropped its coconut.

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