National transport The Safety Board confirmed Sunday that it is investigating an airliner that had an object hit its windshield while flying over Utah.
“The NTSB collects radar data, weather data, flight recorder data,” the federal agency said at a news conference. social network site X. “The windshield is being sent to the NTSB laboratory for examination.”
The strike occurred Thursday on a United Airlines flight from Denver to Los Angeles. Images published on social networks revealed that one of the two large windows at the front of the 737 MAX aircraft was significantly cracked. Related images also show the pilot's hand, which was cut several times by what appeared to be small shards of glass.
The origin of the object is not confirmed
Flight Captain as reported described the object that hit the plane as “space junk.” However, this has not been confirmed.
Following the impact, the plane landed safely at Salt Lake City International Airport after veering off course.
Images of the impact show that the object hit hard near the top right side of the window, damaging the metal frame. Because airplane windows are several layers thick with laminate in between, the window glass did not break completely. The plane was flying at an altitude of over 30,000 feet (probably around 36,000 feet) and the cabin appeared to be pressurized.
So was it space junk? Without additional data it is impossible to know this. Only a few bird species can fly above 30,000 feet. However, the tallest flying bird in the world, Rüppel's Vulturefound mainly in Africa. An uncontrolled weather balloon is also possible, although it is unclear whether the speed would be high enough to cause the observed damage. Hail is also a potential culprit.
Assuming it wasn't Shohei Ohtani home run ballthe only other potential cause of damage is an object from space.
This was the pilot's initial conclusion, but a meteor is more likely than space debris. Estimates vary, but recent study in the magazine Geology found that about 17,000 meteorites fall to Earth during the year. This is at least an order of magnitude greater than the amount of artificial space debris that survived re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
Careful analysis of the glass and metal that the object came into contact with should reveal its origin.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technique.
