National Transport The safety board confirmed Sunday that it is investigating a passenger plane that struck the plane’s windshield while flying over Utah.
“The NTSB collects data from radar, weather and flight recorders,” the federal agency said online social networking site X. “Windshield sent to NTSB labs for examination.”
The strike occurred Thursday during a United Airlines flight from Denver to Los Angeles. Photos shared on social media showed that one of the two immense windows at the front of the 737 MAX aircraft was significantly cracked. Related photos also show the pilot’s arm being cut multiple times by what appear to be compact shards of glass.
The origin of the object has not been confirmed
Flight captain apparently referred to the object that hit the plane as “space debris.” However, this has not been confirmed.
Following the impact, the aircraft landed safely at Salt Lake City International Airport after being diverted.
Photos of the impact showed that an object struck the upper right side of the window, causing damage to the metal frame. Because airplane windows are multi-layered with laminate between them, the glass did not shatter completely. The plane was flying at an altitude of over 30,000 feet – probably about 36,000 feet – and the cockpit was apparently pressurized.
So was it space junk? It’s impossible to tell without more data. Very few bird species can fly above 30,000 feet. However, the tallest flying bird in the world, Rüppell’s vultureoccurs mainly in Africa. An unregulated weather balloon is also possible, although it is unclear whether the speed would be high enough to cause the damage observed. Hail is also a potential culprit.
Assuming that it was not the so-called Shohei Ohtani home run ballthe only other potential cause of damage is an object from outer space.
That was the pilot’s initial conclusion, but a meteor is more likely than space debris. Estimates vary, but recent study in the diary Geology found that about 17,000 meteorites hit Earth in a given year. This is at least an order of magnitude greater than the amount of human-made space debris that survives re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere.
A thorough analysis of the glass and metal hit by the object should allow for its origin to be determined.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.