There are some other pictures circulating showing the exterior of the aircraft. It definitely appears something hit the aircraft. There is a skid mark on the frame around the window.[1]
Will be interesting to read if an investigative report is made public.
Watermarks usually have branding to indicate ownership. Two distinct 3D paperclip overlays don't seem like watermarks and JonNYC doesn't use them in all photos he's posted on his thread on Bluesky.
A lot doesn't add up from that article though. The writer mentions the window in question is the Captain's window. From the pictures, it appears to be the First Officer's window. Also, the writer mentions pock marks consistent with hail damage in other areas of the aircraft but I haven't found any images substantiating that.
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.
Most journalists are pretty bad when it comes to covering aviation so I wouldn’t put much weight on the discrepancies. Half the time they can’t tell the difference between a jet and a Cessna 172. Seriously.
Indeed. As an engineer I ask an expert to review anything technical that I write (or program) for accuracy where I'm not an expert, but for some reason journalists don't do this. And so here we are.
So normally your wounds don’t scab over instantaneously, what is the real story here? Obviously the majority of satellites are actually balloons/sataloons.
It seems like the article has been updated: "Sources told AVweb Sunday that the focus of the investigation is on a weather balloon payload." This is far more likely than a meteor.
In this case, it should be easy to detect genetic or biological material if it was a meat sack strike & rule out space debris. They don’t tend to do well when hit at several hundred mph.
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?).
AFAIK (what is not much on the military side), fighters are all optimized for performance, and not resilience. And fighters that work on improving the crew options focus on survivability instead of resilience because it tends to weight less.
That might be technically true, but the F35 and F16 are both single engine aircraft and IIRC constitute the bulk of at least the US air force’s combat aircraft.
B2, F117, B52, P9, F22, F14, F18, C130, C17, C5, CH47, AH-64, SR71, U2, A10, and on and on just to give some recent examples.
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.
> Apparently only one layer of the windshield was damaged
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.
It’s mentioned in the books, kopeng. I think it comes up in some of the repair scenes, but there’s such a jargon dump in many of them that it might slip by. Naomi is caressing some of it at one point, like she’s petting a cat. Which is not far off from how she sees the Roci.
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.
I suspect the cuts on the pilot's arm are from BEFORE the incident. The blood looks a pretty dried up and the yellowish streaks look like some kind of antiseptic ointment was applied. The oval shaped wound closest to the camera looks like it's been healing. Could be wrong though.
Now I'm just imagining the object hitting the window, the pilot looking down at his arm injury from the bowl of petunias that hit the plane yesterday, and thinking "not again."
Why would there be a picture of the arm circulating if the injuries are from another incident? I won’t dispute your analysis of the photo because I don’t know anything about the subject
Edit: I take that back. Another photo has emerged showing more blood. [1]
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.
There should be small pieces of whatever they hit embedded in the body & glass of the aircraft. As long as they are analyzed, the cause of this won't remain a mystery forever.
My first thought was that this is more likely to be a spontaneous failure of the windshield glass under pressure, due to manufacturing flaw or improper maintenance. Things like that have certainly happened before. But then again, it seems weird that glass fragments would be projected inward in that scenario.
Plugging in 35k ft altitude, and 775 ft/s velocity here (https://www.spaceworks.aero/fcc2/index.html) gives dynamic pressure of 220 lb/ft2, vs ~2100 lb/ft2 for 1atm at sea level (the same calculator says 7k ft altitude has a static pressure of ~1600 lb/ft2, or rough idea of cabin air pressure).
At that height if windows are damaged enough to hurt captain or pilot, would the flight lose balance because of air coming in? How did they land in that situation? There is no mention of that in the article.
The laminated glass did not fully break. It appears only the inner layer shattered, and cabin pressure was not lost.
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:
The airplane shouldn't be affected much by a blown out window. However, the blast in the captain's face might make it very difficult for him to see or even breath. If he could get his oxygen mask on, which I think has goggles, he should be ok.
The article itself says the object was probably a weather balloon, not space debris, and the title of the article is now "United MAX Hit by Falling Object at 36,000 Feet".
My first guess would a bird. Bird strikes happen all the time; there are billions of birds. Next guess would be a drone; there are a lot more drones flying around than spacecraft.
Ruppell’s Griffon Vulture is the only bird clocked that high, but my understanding is that we’ve been moving estimates higher for a bunch of birds over the last couple of decades. Absence of proof and proof of absence and so forth. I think people have been paying more attention.
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.
"Something from “space” may have just struck a United Airlines flight over Utah" "“NTSB gathering radar, weather, flight recorder data.”": https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/10/something-from-space-m... (arstechnica.com/space/2025/10/something-from-space-may-have-just-struck-a-united-airlines-flight-over-utah/)
i remember i had a plane flight that was horrendously delayed once, and then finally when we hop on board they make an announcement about it being a 737 Max and I laughed, thinking they were joking...
Isn't the speed of descent of objects falling out of orbit so great they usually burn up before hitting the ground, and wouldn't that speed cause them to easily penetrate into the interior of the plane?
If an object survives reentry far enough to be at airliner altitudes, it will have significantly slowed down already and probably be falling at or near terminal velocity. Of course it depends on the shape and density of the object.
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?
Much higher than a few decades back, but still effectively zero. Even after putting up X thousands of satellites up into orbit, they still physically cover a tiny total surface area. And the same goes for planes. So two of these colliding would be a monumental freak accident, which is why I'm still assuming it's not space debris until more information shows up.
His arm is covered in sharpnel wounds from the windshield being shattered due to the energy of impact. That is how sharpnel wounds look like. There's a good chance he went to the hospital later to get the glass pulled out of his arm.
We are nearly at the peak of the annual Orionid meteor shower. [0] There should be a higher probability of encountering meteor debris during this period than during periods where there are no meteor showers in progress. We are passing through the debris from Halley's Comet right now and for about another two weeks.
Anyone else think about that Asimov robot story with the "intuitive" robot "Jane"? She had discovered which stars were most likely to have planets around them with the right conditions for life and was flying back on an airplane with her human handler when it was hit by a meteorite.
If this did happen to be space debris as a result of human activity then the likelihood that this becomes a more common occurrence is likely seeing how Kuiper and Starlink are looking to have somewhere around 42,000 satellites and it currently has around 8,000; Kuiper also has similar ambitions.
Even with that the odds of this have to be less likely than winning the lottery while getting bit by a shark that was simultaneously struck by lightning.
There are some other pictures circulating showing the exterior of the aircraft. It definitely appears something hit the aircraft. There is a skid mark on the frame around the window.[1]
Will be interesting to read if an investigative report is made public.
[1]https://viewfromthewing.com/new-cockpit-photos-may-show-what...
anyone know why these photos have random paperclip/clippy icons?
Not sure but first thought was part of the right to repair movement having adopted clippy as a mascot/logo (louis rossman)
They use clippy, not paperclips.
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 the video bear that icon.
Probably OPs’ version of watermark..?
Watermarks usually have branding to indicate ownership. Two distinct 3D paperclip overlays don't seem like watermarks and JonNYC doesn't use them in all photos he's posted on his thread on Bluesky.
They don't even seem to serve as visual cues.
Interesting, that link says it might just be hail.
A lot doesn't add up from that article though. The writer mentions the window in question is the Captain's window. From the pictures, it appears to be the First Officer's window. Also, the writer mentions pock marks consistent with hail damage in other areas of the aircraft but I haven't found any images substantiating that.
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.
I feel like a hail would cause a strong radar return that would have been noticed or at least documented by NEXRAD or onboard systems.
I’m sure the NTSB investigation will consider this angle, and we will find out eventually.
Most journalists are pretty bad when it comes to covering aviation so I wouldn’t put much weight on the discrepancies. Half the time they can’t tell the difference between a jet and a Cessna 172. Seriously.
Reminds me of this gem:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/6d/79/e9/6d79e9982b92c476e1d671f31...
Journalists are generally pretty bad at covering any technical topic, unless the journalist has some specific training in that topic, which is rare.
Indeed. As an engineer I ask an expert to review anything technical that I write (or program) for accuracy where I'm not an expert, but for some reason journalists don't do this. And so here we are.
So normally your wounds don’t scab over instantaneously, what is the real story here? Obviously the majority of satellites are actually balloons/sataloons.
I didn't see any scabs. Wounds looked quite fresh to me.
It seems like the article has been updated: "Sources told AVweb Sunday that the focus of the investigation is on a weather balloon payload." This is far more likely than a meteor.
Speculation-free facts: https://avherald.com/h?article=52e80701
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL1093/history/2025...
Interesting that there's been a bird strike at that altitude before (per the comments in avherald). I didn't know birds flew that high.
Go for a scroll up https://neal.fun/space-elevator/
Thank you.
This made my day!
This is awesome
Demoiselle crane flies over Himalayas and over Everest during its yearly migration, so it'd be flying at least 30k feet high.
I only know that from Planet Earth documentary, which was such a great show!
In this case, it should be easy to detect genetic or biological material if it was a meat sack strike & rule out space debris. They don’t tend to do well when hit at several hundred mph.
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?).
Or just look for the blood splat.
A bird at hundreds of miles an hour leaves a heck of a blood trail.
He took a duck in the face at 250 knots.
It hit the plane on the front. Doesn't something like a bird that flies at a stable altitude increase the chance of a collision on the front?
I can't remember the species, but there's a bird that files crazy high. I think it's a vulture.
Yes, vultures can fly crazy high, and do a lot of damage to aircraft.
They are a well-known nemesis of military planes, that fly faster and don't have redundancy to survive a hit.
It should be noted that many species are occasionally hit at altitudes thought to be impossible for them to fly at.
One notable example: https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/flying-fish/
One of the best Far Side comics:
https://store.gocomics.com/product/the-far-side-comic-art-pr...
Yeah, if I had to predict that kind of collision with fauna, I would fail.
Given this happened 400 ft past the end of the runway, I really don’t think the altitude involved would be very surprising
Well, the species in question tend to not veer much higher than the water level.
That probably depends on the plane.
The A-10 Warthog is known for being quite tough. It operates relatively slowly, at small-arms altitudes, so it can take a licking.
> They are a well-known nemesis of military planes, that fly faster and don't have redundancy to survive a hit.
Wait, military aircraft have LESS redundancy to survive "hits" than civil?
>Wait, military aircraft have LESS redundancy to survive "hits" than civil?
How many single engine civilian jets are there?
AFAIK (what is not much on the military side), fighters are all optimized for performance, and not resilience. And fighters that work on improving the crew options focus on survivability instead of resilience because it tends to weight less.
As a result, resilience isn't great.
Bombers and logistic planes have redundancy.
I guess they just have a big enough budget that losing millions of dollars of plane to a bird isn't a big deal?
F22. F14. F18.
The small ones have less, yes. In compensation, they have ejection seats.
Um yeah that's really surprising considering military planes are designed for situations where there are being shot at.
I'd guess they mostly try to "move fast and don't get broken" ...
Civil aircraft usually have at least two engines and military - usually one.
Haha, no. Most military aircraft have multiple engines.
That might be technically true, but the F35 and F16 are both single engine aircraft and IIRC constitute the bulk of at least the US air force’s combat aircraft.
B2, F117, B52, P9, F22, F14, F18, C130, C17, C5, CH47, AH-64, SR71, U2, A10, and on and on just to give some recent examples.
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.
> Apparently only one layer of the windshield was damaged
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.
Maybe the outermost layers just transferred the energy to the innermost, which exploded tiny shards of glass? In general though, I agree, weird.
And in tank warfare this is called spalling
A projectile hits the armor and doesn't penetrate it, but the armor inside still fragments and injured the operators
There a picture of glass spall in the cockpit and it's not unusual for ballistics glass to spall when hit by a projectile.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatLookedExpensive/comments/1oalnx...
> Spalling
This was also adopted by The Expanse, where the interiors of ships (particularly war ships) are coated in antispalling coatings.
Hey bossman thanks for pointing this out. Will have to look for it next time I watch. Yam seng.
It’s mentioned in the books, kopeng. I think it comes up in some of the repair scenes, but there’s such a jargon dump in many of them that it might slip by. Naomi is caressing some of it at one point, like she’s petting a cat. Which is not far off from how she sees the Roci.
didn't help Shed Garvey lol
My read is that it works mostly for battle shrapnel and space mining accidents and does nothing for kinetic weapons, hit or miss for micrometeoroids.
That would be two layers though.
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.
Came here to ask the same thing -- something is missing from the reporting because this makes absolutely no sense.
I suspect the cuts on the pilot's arm are from BEFORE the incident. The blood looks a pretty dried up and the yellowish streaks look like some kind of antiseptic ointment was applied. The oval shaped wound closest to the camera looks like it's been healing. Could be wrong though.
Now I'm just imagining the object hitting the window, the pilot looking down at his arm injury from the bowl of petunias that hit the plane yesterday, and thinking "not again."
Why would there be a picture of the arm circulating if the injuries are from another incident? I won’t dispute your analysis of the photo because I don’t know anything about the subject
Edit: I take that back. Another photo has emerged showing more blood. [1]
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.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatLookedExpensive/comments/1oalnx...
There should be small pieces of whatever they hit embedded in the body & glass of the aircraft. As long as they are analyzed, the cause of this won't remain a mystery forever.
Unless it was hail.
My first thought was that this is more likely to be a spontaneous failure of the windshield glass under pressure, due to manufacturing flaw or improper maintenance. Things like that have certainly happened before. But then again, it seems weird that glass fragments would be projected inward in that scenario.
There are pictures of the outside where you can clearly see impact damage to the top of the window frame.
> it seems weird that glass fragments would be projected inward in that scenario
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".
Plugging in 35k ft altitude, and 775 ft/s velocity here (https://www.spaceworks.aero/fcc2/index.html) gives dynamic pressure of 220 lb/ft2, vs ~2100 lb/ft2 for 1atm at sea level (the same calculator says 7k ft altitude has a static pressure of ~1600 lb/ft2, or rough idea of cabin air pressure).
The static pressure at 30,000 feet would have to be added in, around 550 lb/ft2, so it looks like the pressure inside is greater than outside.
At that height if windows are damaged enough to hurt captain or pilot, would the flight lose balance because of air coming in? How did they land in that situation? There is no mention of that in the article.
The laminated glass did not fully break. It appears only the inner layer shattered, and cabin pressure was not lost.
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:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_5390
Hm, has something been done about the "cannot hear the radio" problem since then?
The airplane shouldn't be affected much by a blown out window. However, the blast in the captain's face might make it very difficult for him to see or even breath. If he could get his oxygen mask on, which I think has goggles, he should be ok.
The article mentions there was no depressurisation, meaning the was no breach of the fuselage/windshield.
Don't worry, if it can be blamed on Boeing, it will be.
Well, they do make satellites...
Not unless you want to be spontaneously hit by a falling meteorite yourself in some kind of freak accident / suicide scenario.
The article itself says the object was probably a weather balloon, not space debris, and the title of the article is now "United MAX Hit by Falling Object at 36,000 Feet".
Maybe the title here should be updated?
Some earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45633191
My first guess would a bird. Bird strikes happen all the time; there are billions of birds. Next guess would be a drone; there are a lot more drones flying around than spacecraft.
At 36000'?
Ruppell’s Griffon Vulture is the only bird clocked that high, but my understanding is that we’ve been moving estimates higher for a bunch of birds over the last couple of decades. Absence of proof and proof of absence and so forth. I think people have been paying more attention.
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.
Doubt birds can leave damage on the metal frame of the window like the case here. It looks like metal on metal contact
"Something from “space” may have just struck a United Airlines flight over Utah" "“NTSB gathering radar, weather, flight recorder data.”": https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/10/something-from-space-m... (arstechnica.com/space/2025/10/something-from-space-may-have-just-struck-a-united-airlines-flight-over-utah/)
Out of all planes, it had to be the 737 max
On track to be the most popular model for US domestic travel, replacing the older 737s
I'm sticking to Airbus for the foreseeable future. Though there are plenty of older Boeings still flying too.
It’s gonna be like Honda Accord thefts. Super common car, with certain attributes that make is slightly more tempting.
That’s why I only fly the 737 Pro Max.
i remember i had a plane flight that was horrendously delayed once, and then finally when we hop on board they make an announcement about it being a 737 Max and I laughed, thinking they were joking...
Isn't the speed of descent of objects falling out of orbit so great they usually burn up before hitting the ground, and wouldn't that speed cause them to easily penetrate into the interior of the plane?
If an object survives reentry far enough to be at airliner altitudes, it will have significantly slowed down already and probably be falling at or near terminal velocity. Of course it depends on the shape and density of the object.
My money is on drone.
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?
ATC Audio here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRM5zgE13_s
EDIT: looks like the audio starts when they are already arriving at SLC
Aliens flying drunk again
Classic Azimov plot line
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45633191
What are the odds?
The odds are much higher these days: https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/what-goes-up-mus...
Much higher than a few decades back, but still effectively zero. Even after putting up X thousands of satellites up into orbit, they still physically cover a tiny total surface area. And the same goes for planes. So two of these colliding would be a monumental freak accident, which is why I'm still assuming it's not space debris until more information shows up.
Given that it happened, 100%?
50-50, either it happens, or it doesn't
A million to one, they said.
But it has to be _exactly_ a million to one
That's if it was coming from Mars specifically.
But still they come.
Dude's arm looks like scabs and I don't see anywhere that claims they are related to the impact.
His arm is covered in sharpnel wounds from the windshield being shattered due to the energy of impact. That is how sharpnel wounds look like. There's a good chance he went to the hospital later to get the glass pulled out of his arm.
Can you tell me why the left window appears to be held on with a really big paperclip.
It definitely would more likely be a meteorite than anything else.
What makes a meteorite more likely
We are nearly at the peak of the annual Orionid meteor shower. [0] There should be a higher probability of encountering meteor debris during this period than during periods where there are no meteor showers in progress. We are passing through the debris from Halley's Comet right now and for about another two weeks.
[0]https://www.space.com/stargazing/meteor-showers/orionid-mete...
Just that many more of them are present in the atmosphere than reentering space debris pieces.
> many more of them are present in the atmosphere
At 36,000 feet?
Why not? What comes down must come from somewhere up.
What makes a meteorite not "space debris" though?
The same which makes fallen leaves in the forest not "garbage". Space debris is man-made, meteorites aren't and hence are not space debris [1].
[1] https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Clean_Space/What_is_space_d...
still a lot more birds than meteorites or spacecraft.
There are not many birds at cruising altitude. Some, but not many.
Could this be from another plane on the same nav route but higher altitude?
Anyone else think about that Asimov robot story with the "intuitive" robot "Jane"? She had discovered which stars were most likely to have planets around them with the right conditions for life and was flying back on an airplane with her human handler when it was hit by a meteorite.
[dead]
Wasn't there a significant Starlink deorbiting recently?
Not clear yet what happened but from the exterior photos it’s pretty obvious they struck something.
Space debris isn’t implausible, although there are several other possibilities too.
If this did happen to be space debris as a result of human activity then the likelihood that this becomes a more common occurrence is likely seeing how Kuiper and Starlink are looking to have somewhere around 42,000 satellites and it currently has around 8,000; Kuiper also has similar ambitions.
Even with that the odds of this have to be less likely than winning the lottery while getting bit by a shark that was simultaneously struck by lightning.
Starlink satellites demise upon re-entry though so they're not going to be the cause.