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.
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.
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?).
> 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.
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).
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?
"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/)
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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?).
Go for a scroll up https://neal.fun/space-elevator/
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/
Yeah, if I had to predict that kind of collision with fauna, I would fail.
> 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?
> 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...
Came here to ask the same thing -- something is missing from the reporting because this makes absolutely no sense.
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.
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).
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.
Unless it was hail.
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?
"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/)
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.
Some earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45633191
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
ATC Audio here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRM5zgE13_s
EDIT: looks like the audio starts when they are already arriving at SLC
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'?
Wasn't there a significant Starlink deorbiting recently?
Classic Azimov plot line
Dude's arm looks like scabs and I don't see anywhere that claims they are related to the impact.
What are the odds?
Given that it happened, 100%?
A million to one, they said.
That's if it was coming from Mars specifically.
But still they come.
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.
Could this be from another plane on the same nav route but higher altitude?
It definitely would more likely be a meteorite than anything else.
What makes a meteorite more likely
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.
still a lot more birds than meteorites or spacecraft.
There are not many birds at cruising altitude. Some, but not many.