At speed, I don't know what the outside pressure on the windshield would be, but I'd be surprised if it was lower than the cabin air pressure.
After all, it is called a wind "shield".
It has happened before that cockpit windows have failed at altitude resulting in explosive decompression, and the plane still landed successfully. For example, British Airways Flight 5390:
How does that square with the picture of the pilot’s arm with tiny cuts? Did the space debris only damage the internal layer? Something is not adding up to me here.
A projectile hits the armor and doesn't penetrate it, but the armor inside still fragments and injured the operators
https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatLookedExpensive/comments/1oalnx...
This was also adopted by The Expanse, where the interiors of ships (particularly war ships) are coated in antispalling coatings.
Might have been a mention on the Agatha King.
But the coloration in the window sure suggests spalling. I’m surprised the tempered glass did that much damage. That takes a lot of velocity. Which is probably why they aren’t thinking bird.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatLookedExpensive/comments/1oalnx...
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None of the articles I have seen have said the lacerations are a result of the "space debris" incident. The linked article simply says "One of the photos shows a pilot’s arm peppered with small cuts and scratches", and which is not the same as "the pilot said the shattering glass caused the cuts you see on his arm."
I am saying it is possible that the pilot had a previous, unrelated injury, and it just so happened to be captured in the picture of the windshield. That picture is going viral because it was likely one of the first pics from the incident, but it does not mean his injuries are necessarily from the incident. I was only pointing this out based on the way the blood looked more dried up and treated/healing.
Professional outlets do this all the time, and they're _paid_ not to mess this up. Copying other outlet's bad reporting without fact checking, then once a couple more "corroborating" articles come up (or one from a reputable outlet) and it'll just be repeated as fact, they can't all be wrong right?
Now it's "Digitize. Publicize. Monetize."
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL1093/history/2025...
They are a well-known nemesis of military planes, that fly faster and don't have redundancy to survive a hit.
One notable example: https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/flying-fish/
180 mph taken from a bit of googling, ballpark figure on upper end.
So this was really immediately after takeoff. My understanding of commercial airliners is they usually fly fairly parallel with the ground just after takeoff to pick up speed before ascending, so I would guess they hadn’t much altitude at all.
Anyway it’s a very interesting article, ty to poster! And it was an interesting question to think about.
https://store.gocomics.com/product/the-far-side-comic-art-pr...
Wait, military aircraft have LESS redundancy to survive "hits" than civil?
There are a few single engine aircraft roles (including the F104), but they are not and have never been the bulk of active serving aircraft. It isn’t just ‘technically’ true.
edit: ah but they are "military aircraft", sure. fine.
And not all fighter jets are single engine. For example, the F22, F18, etc.
That's not to say they don't defend in depth, one reason twin engine fighters are desired is because of engine redundancy after all, but a more "armored" plain is a slower, bulkier, easier to detect and easier to hit target. And you'll still likely get taken down in one hit.
And there's still not a lot you can do if your engine swallows a bird or two, especially if you only have one.
The military also has the expectation that not everyone is going to come home, unlike a civilian airliner where the safety margins are much wider.
As a result, resilience isn't great.
Bombers and logistic planes have redundancy.
Some helicopters have a single engine. Most have 2. They are still unreliable death machines, and arguably 2 engines makes the problem a bit worse (more moving parts). They are (sometimes) more tolerant of a single engine out, of course. But transmissions are often the weak spot with helicopters.
Single vs Dual has many factors, not just reliability.
A single engine failure on a SR71 (if I remember correctly) resulted in a airframe loss and ejection at relatively low speeds, and one at full speed would likely result in a complete crew loss on top of it - and it has dual engines. Think catastrophic near instant destruction.
Sometimes you just need more power than a single engine (with current tech) can provide in the space you have available, for instance.
Sometimes, like an A10, you really do want something that can take a massive beating and keep going.
A B52 can lose 2 engines with no issues, and theoretically up to 4 and still be controllable (depending on the distribution of the lost engines). But that isn’t because it needs reliability, but because it’s got 8 engines because it was designed to carry a metric shit ton of explosives, and it only had 60’s era tech jet engines.
Modern jets usually use 2 (much more powerful) engines for similar or even larger payloads.
Depending on how fast the plane is going, "good chunk" might be a hilarious understatement too. Hitting an object at 1000mph imparts 4x the damage compared to hitting an object at 500mph.
If you want to see an example of a durable military aircraft, look at the A-10:
(Hit by a literal bird, still flying: https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/a-10-warthog-hits-bird-at-r...)
(Hit by idk what, giant hole in engine, engine on fire, still flying for an hour back to base: https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-another-story-10-warth...)
Anyways, that's a military plane designed to get hit by... stuff... and as a result can take bird strikes. But its max speed is like 400mph and it would get absolutely wrecked by any serious opposition from fighters. The more resilient you make a plane to birds, the more vulnerable it is to missiles, per unit price. And missiles is kinda the point of the whole endeavor.
How many single engine civilian jets are there?
The A-10 Warthog is known for being quite tough. It operates relatively slowly, at small-arms altitudes, so it can take a licking.
The only other thing really up that high would be space debris, weather balloon payload (the balloon itself is very thin and soft), or maybe a sounding rocket (but don’t these come with NOTAMs?).
A bird at hundreds of miles an hour leaves a heck of a blood trail.
Wish it used a larger more readable font or at least had an option for one though.
Jokes aside, this is good advice.
I only know that from Planet Earth documentary, which was such a great show!
Likely candidates are 1) some metal payload dangling from a defunct high-altitude balloon and
2) space rock.
Will be interesting to read if an investigative report is made public.
[1]https://viewfromthewing.com/new-cockpit-photos-may-show-what...
Hail is absolutely the most probably explanation, the article points to two other instances with similar outcomes. I think the doubt comes from the lack of evidence of hail or convective activity or other hail damage on the aircraft. Also, the pilot reportedly said he saw something coming at the aircraft.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/6d/79/e9/6d79e9982b92c476e1d671f31...
I imagine most journalists would love to have technical reviewers on their work, but there's no funding for it and there's pressure to churn content as quickly as possible. The specialized editors and fact checkers have been stripped away in the last few decades to create lean content mills.
well, so, we call these people what they are : tabloid writers.
journalists are the ones that take the time, effort, and cost to verify claims and rebroadcast perceived truths.
A journalist deprived of resources might regress to what you call a tabloid writer, sure. But my issue is with framing it as a moral failing on their part, that they're too lazy or stupid or arrogant to get the facts right. Surely there are people like that, but it isn't most of them. This is a systemic issue. As a society we have failed to fund these activities.
I’m sure the NTSB investigation will consider this angle, and we will find out eventually.
That said, I really doubt this was hail. The pilot is said to have seen something coming, which is probably why they are focused on a weather balloon payload now.
They don't even seem to serve as visual cues.
Specifically the cartoon stock art clippy from the original video essay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ
Notice how almost all the comments on that video bear the clippy icon. It's spreading everywhere. Twitter, Reddit, Instagram ...
Thr thing about the general public is that they're apathetic, they can't boycott their way out of a paper bag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRM5zgE13_s
EDIT: looks like the audio starts when they are already arriving at SLC
> “Apparently only one layer of the windshield was damaged, and there was no depressurization.”
And from the photos, it looks like it was the outer layer. So, where would the glass have come from?
That vulture looks like a big boy too. So not impossible.
Edit: this bird is South American, adapted to the Andes, which is a bit of a hike to Colorado.
It could be parts of a weather balloon, or small meteor fragments, or even something that came off another plane flying slightly higher, but that would probably have been discovered already. Could be space debris as well, more likely if there was a launch around the same time.
However, that area does get thunderstorms that can catch birds and tremendously boost their altitudes to 45-60k feet. The bird would almost certainly die on the way up and maybe also freeze, but that might make it more dangerous if it hits a plane on the way back down.
I don't know if there were any storms that day close enough to make such a strike possible in this case.
Space debris isn’t implausible, although there are several other possibilities too.
Too low. Debris burns up in the mesosphere and upper stratosphere. Airlines cruise about halways down from there.
There are more drones up there than falling rocks. There are probably more classified drones up there than falling rocket parts. I suspect this aircraft collided with something far more terrestrial. Something with its transponder off. Any chinese balloons over denver at the moment?
Maybe the title here should be updated?
Space is big, but the upper atmosphere is pretty big, too!
I understand that there are a lot of planes and they cover a lot of miles, and there are a lot of weather balloons too... but each windshield is merely tracing a 40cm high by 150cm wide rectangle across an entire country, through an airspace 12km tall covering 10 million square kilometers.
My son brings his glove when we go to a game for the local minor league baseball team in case of a foul ball or home run, we've spent a couple dozen hours in seats near enough to the action to give it a chance...but that glove has not yet intersected with the path of a baseball in an environment that's significantly more target-dense.
What's the probability that the path of a plane windshield randomly intersects with a weather balloon payload? I would have said it's negligible, but apparently not!
There it goes the big sky theory once again, someone let the guy know there were six mid air collisions this year alone.
Earlier reports suggested it could have been something from space but that seems unlikely since the velocity of anything that survived reentry would likely have caused substantial damage beyond a cracked windshield. The theory was likely amplified by the captain of the flight who reportedly described the object that hit the plane as “space debris.”
Maybe the submitted headline isn’t justified?
Here’s what appears to be the prior version from archive.ph, which does align more with the submitted hed:
Authorities are now considering whether a falling object, possibly from space, caused damage to the windshield and frame on a United 737 MAX over Colorado on Thursday. Various reports that include watermarked photos of the damage suggest the plane was struck by a falling object not long after taking off from Denver for Los Angeles. One of the photos shows a pilot’s arm peppered with small cuts and scratches. In his remarks after the incident, the captain reportedly described the object that hit the plane as “space debris,” which would suggest it was from a rocket or satellite or some other human-made object. Some reports say it was possibly a meteorite.
Whatever hit the plane, it was an enormously rare event and likely the first time it’s ever happened. The plane diverted without incident to Salt Lake City where the approximately 130 passengers were put on another plane to finish the last half of the 90-minute flight. Apparently only one layer of the windshield was damaged, and there was no depressurization. The crew descended from 36,000 feet to 26,000 feet for the diversion, likely to ease the pressure differential on the remaining layers of windshield. Neither the airline nor FAA have commented.
Would be nice to update the HN hed though.
A 50 cal bullet is estimated to reach 15,000 feet if fired straight up.
But this is Colorado: in the most extreme scenario, standing atop Mount Elbert, you’re already at ~15,000 feet.
Combine these two — and account for the dramatically reduced air resistance along the bullet’s path starting from high altitidue — you could conceivably get a bullet that high
Some dope standing at high elevation blasting bullets into the sky in Colorado seems as plausible as a meteor
saltyoldman•3mo ago
SteveNuts•3mo ago
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JumpCrisscross•3mo ago
At 36,000 feet?
amelius•3mo ago
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[1] https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Clean_Space/What_is_space_d...
doodlebugging•3mo ago
[0]https://www.space.com/stargazing/meteor-showers/orionid-mete...