A United Airlines jet has collided at high altitude with a mystery object, wounding a pilot and forcing an emergency landing. Flight 1093 had been cruising at 36,000 feet from Denver to Los Angeles when it was struck on Thursday. What hit the Boeing 737 MAX remains a mystery, with images of the plane showing a shattered windscreen and burn marks on the surrounding metal. Usual suspects for mid-air impacts, such as hail and birds, tend only to happen at lower altitudes. The New York Post reports there has been speculation that it could have been space debris. This is unlikely too. A 2023 report by the Federal Aviation Administration put the chances of space junk hitting a plane at 0.36 to one trillion. Images show the bloodied right arm of one of the pilots. “I was just looking out the window thinking, We could go down at any time,” passenger Heather Ramsey told FOX 11. “It was really scary.” United said the plane “landed safely in Salt Lake City to address damage to its multilayered windshield. We arranged for another aircraft to take customers to Los Angeles later that day, and our maintenance team is working to return the aircraft to service.”
