United MAX Hit by Falling Object at 36,000 Feet (avbrief.com)

It definitely would more likely be a meteorite than anything else.

Some earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45633191

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.

What are the odds?

> 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.

Speculation-free facts: https://avherald.com/h?article=52e80701

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL1093/history/2025...

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...

Wasn't there a significant Starlink deorbiting recently?

"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/)

ATC Audio here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRM5zgE13_s

EDIT: looks like the audio starts when they are already arriving at SLC

Dude's arm looks like scabs and I don't see anywhere that claims they are related to the impact.

Could this be from another plane on the same nav route but higher altitude?

Classic Azimov plot line

Out of all planes, it had to be the 737 max

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.

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?

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.

Aliens flying drunk again

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.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45633191

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.

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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?