Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren for USA TODAY
Space debris is probably pretty low on the list of things most people are worried about dealing with when they board a commerical flight. However, passengers who were traveling with United Airlines last week may have experienced some history after their plane was forced to land due to shattered windshield that was possibly shattered by an extraterrestrial object.
Commercial aviation is statistically the safest form of travel, but there are still plenty of things that can go wrong when you’re flying.
Anyone who’s familiar with Captain Sully’s heroics during what’s known as “The Miracle on the Hudson” knows pilots are on high alerts for birds that can cripple an aircraft, and they usually do what they can to chart a course that ensures they’ll avoid hailstorms and other inclement weather.
Being hit by an object falling from outer space is not usually something that anyone needs to concerned about, but that may have been the root cause of an incident that left a pilot with minor injuries and forced the plane he was aboard to make an emergency landing.
A United Airlines flight may have been struck my a meteorite or space debris that shattered the plane’s windshield
In 2023, the FAA published a report concerning the risk space debris (specifically satellites falling out of orbit) poses to planes.
It estimated there was a .1% chance it could result in “a single global injury or death during an aviation activity” and went on to say the chance of a passenger being injured in the air was less that one-in-a-trillion—low enough to be dismissed as “statistically insignificant.”
According to KTLA, a pilot aboard United Airlines Flight 1093 on Thursday may have defied those overwhelming odds based on the incident that forced the Boeing 737 that was carrying 140 passengers to land in Salt Lake City during a journey that was supposed to take them from Denver to Los Angeles.
United Airlines 737 MAX pilot injured after the windshield cracked at 36,000 while flying from Denver to Los Angeles on Thursday.
Reports have suggested the possibility of the aircraft being hit by falling space debris or a small meteorite, though this remains unconfirmed.… pic.twitter.com/8qNg6aA0uE
— Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) October 18, 2025
The incident in question occured when the plane was cruising at 36,000 feet, an altitude where object strikes (i.e. birds and hail) are virtually nonexistent. However, photos clearly show something struck the windshield from the outside while leaving scorch marks, which led many amateur aviation investigators to conclude it was either hit by space debris or a meteorite.
The National Transportation Safety Board is currently conducting an investigation and has sent the windshield to a lab for further analysis. If space debris is the culprit, it will mark the first time in recorded aviation history a plan was struck by some.