Debris from space? Small meteor? Mystery strike cracks windshield of United Airlines plane
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Photos circulating online show what appear to be scorch marks on the plane from the impact, as well as the pilot’s arm bleeding and bruised, with injuries consistent with glass cuts.
PHOTO: BREAKING AVIATION NEWS & PHOTOS/X
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A United Airlines airplane that was headed to Los Angeles from Denver was forced to make an emergency landing after its windshield was damaged in the air on Oct 16.
The cause of the damage to the Boeing 737 is yet unknown, although speculation has arisen that space debris, or even a small meteor, could have hit the plane, according to the New York Post.
It reported that photos circulating online show the pilot’s arm bleeding and bruised, with injuries consistent with glass cuts.
Broken glass covered the dashboard and cockpit, said the Post. It added that other photos show what appear to be scorch marks on the plane from the impact.
A 2021 report by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the risk from falling space debris to an individual passenger in an aircraft is less than a trillion to one and is “statistically insignificant”.
Global flight tracking website Flightradar24 said that if the windshield had been damaged by space debris, then it would be “the first documented instance of such an impact on a commercial passenger aircraft”.
It added that while the “growing volume of orbiting debris adds a new dimension to safety considerations”, the risk of an airplane getting hit by space debris remains “extraordinarily low”.
Another explanation for the damage came from WindBorneWX chief executive John Dean, who suggested on social media platform X that one of the weather balloons used by his company to provide weather forecast intel may have played a part in the incident.
This was in response to another user who noted that the window framing of the airplane looked like it had been blasted by sand, adding that said weather balloons use sand as ballast.
A preliminary report by the company has been shared with both the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the FAA, according to Flightradar24.
The NTSB announced in an X post on Oct 20 that the windshield cracked near Moab, Utah.
The board added that it is gathering radar, weather and flight recorder data as it looks into the incident further. The damaged windscreen is also being sent to its laboratories for examination, the agency said on X.
The Los Angeles Times reported that a United Airlines spokesperson said that passengers were taken the rest of the way to Los Angeles on a different aircraft.
It added that there were 140 people aboard the aircraft, including the crew.
