Here are photos from the exterior of the cockpit where space debris may have hit a United Airlines Boeing 737 flying from Denver to Los Angeles on Thursday. Flight 1093 diverted to Salt Lake City with 140 passengers on board. The aircraft remains on the ground there two days later.
— JonNYC (@xjonnyc.bsky.social) October 18, 2025 at 8:23 AM
These photos come from aviation watchdog JonNYC who previously shared a photo from the interior of the cockpit during flight. That showed the windshield and the arm of a pilot – an arm that wasn’t consistent with my earlier guess of a crack of a windshield ply due to heat or a connector fault. That guess was based on:
- Earlier reporting that the diversion was due to a crack in one layer of the windshield.
- Localized overheating and thermal stress causing a ply to crack can leave heat discoloration or “scorchy” marks.
- The risk of space debris to aviation is miniscule – a 2023 FAA report found an annual 0.1% chance that falling space debris would cause a single global aviation casualty (individual passenger risk less than a trillion‑to‑one). There’s not been a single commercial space debris strike of a commercial aircraft on record.
Photo NOT confirmed
Hearing there were scorch-marks, so space-debris or meteorite. THOSE ARE TWO THEORIES
— JonNYC (@xjonnyc.bsky.social) October 17, 2025 at 1:39 PM
However these new photos certainly suggest an external impact. I am still skeptical of space debris as the cause and now lean more towards hail. Here’s what we see in the exterior photos:
- Impact near the upper inboard corner of the captain’s windshield with radial/cellular cracking that propagates across the outer ply.
- Dozens of marks on the surrounding nose — exactly what hail peppering looks like.
- No soot, arc trails, or localized burn at the window that you’d expect with a connector/terminal arcing event.
My best guess from this photo is a hail strike to the outboard glass ply at cruise. That matches far better than an internal electrical fault or debris strike. Compare this to hail encounters where cockpit windows go opaque, the radome is pock‑marked, and the airplane diverts such as a Delta Airbus A320 near Denver and an Austrian Airbus A320 headed to Vienna.
The abrasions on the pilot’s forearm in the cockpit shot need explanation. Minor “glass dust” or incidental contact during the event might look like that? The photo from inside the cockpit has a frosted or opaque look, which is what I’d expect when outboard glass fractures. There is no hole or penetration visible outside.
The impact signature and radome peppering appear to be textbook hail. That’s not something you usually see at 36,000 feet, but here’s an FAA circular talking about hail and thunderstorms above 35,000 feet. Hail can be ejected and fall well away from a storm’s core, often in apparently clear air.
So that’s my bet. I can’t rule out space debris, but hail seems like the more probabalistic bet.
I’d love to hear from pilots and meteorologists in the comments on this one, though.
What was the weather at the time?
Despite SpaceX and others’ best efforts.
Archived weather radar data from the time of the flight (Assuming 6-7 am MDT) doesn’t show any convective updrafts along the flight path at all. Suggests hail was not the cause.
Yes, what was the weather? I admit it would be super cool if it was micro meterorite shower or space debris. I’m rooting for those.
This is foil hat theory and his arm has nothing to do with it. Those are older lessions from some kind of skin issue like poison ivy.
Gary….
The picture with the cracking in the upper right corner appears to be the Capts windscreen and the picture that shows his forearm shows the F/Os windscreen. The giant paper clips are actually a new technology to replace ‘speed tape’. Me thinks they had the hail strike and then they had some fun with the internal picture using AI????
Kirk
Badass pilots for handling this horror and getting everyone else back on the ground safely.
On the same day I saw a falling star (meteor) around 9:45 GMT.
Hope this can help in the investigation. Compared this time with the time that the incident happened.
Hail won’t shatter the inside of the glass to cause the glass inside the cockpit or the Captain’s bleeding arm—you conveniently left out the pictures of his arm dripping with blood and the glass scattered around the center console…and the picture of the nose cone with the alleged hail strike.
@Jahman — I’m sure the NTSB or FAA will be right on it… obviously, they frequent VFTW for the inside scoop! /s
Reportedly Starlink satellites are falling at an average rate of 1 per day, if that helps.
As a meteorologist, I can tell you that hail occurring at 36,000 ft would be extremely rare, such that it shouldn’t be assumed to have occurred without solid meteorological analysis. No idea what this jet hit, but hail at that altitude is very unlikely, especially on a flight path from Denver to LA in mid October.
Either a meteorite or space junk would be cold by the time it reached this altitude. They enter dark flight (no plasma-no fire) for about the last 25 miles of travel through the atmosphere.
Space junk would have slight amounts of scorching on the outside based on space junk photos. Some frayed carbon fiber looking pieces seem to make it to the ground, I would expect them to leave threads in entangled in the windshield frame.
Meteorites would have a thin (maybe .020″) fusion crust that is black on the outside. Most meteorites are stoney type. Inside they are usually a whitish conglomeration that resembles concrete. I’d expect a meteorite to shater and leave whitish powder embedded around the edge of the frame.
A small fraction of meteorites are all metal. Not impossible, but improbable in an already improbable story.
I see evidence that the impactor was moving from bottom right to upper left in the photos. Not a strictly vertical trajectory. Both space junk and a meteorite would be traveling virtually vertically at this altitude.
I don’t know much about aircraft. But I know a bit about meteorites.
Interesting how the whole ‘UFO’ frenzy of December 2024 went out with a whimper… JuSt AsKiNg QuEsTiOnS…
It appears to me that the object struck the FO’s window at the upper left corner of the airframe and window and shattered the interior layer of the “windscreen.” Had it been at a lower altitude, a faster airspeed or more centered on the windscreen, the results may have been catastrophic. Good job by the crew.
It was a UFO or Orb. But the lame attempt to blame hail or space debris is the cutest thing I’ve read all week. Keep up the sub-par close minded main stream narrative speculation attempts. You’ll eventually find the truth. Or not.
How much did SpaceX pay you to put “write an article blaming these photos on hail” into ChatGPT?
Doesn’t the first officer sit on the right, which is obviously the window that sustained damage. Then that would be the captains arm with the older wounds.
Ladies & Gentlemen:
First, Rule of incident / accident investigations “Don’t Rule Anything In or Out”
Posited theories above are at best a “WAG” and some of the photo interpretations above are wrong.
Retired UAL International Captain & Accident Investigator
Looks like it got hit by a paper clip……
I’m thinking maybe a turdsickle aka “Blue Ice” from a higher flying jet?
The third plane this week, See Rubio’s, see JD Vance.s . Looks like these drones are at it again! (NHI).
@vladimir putin — There are few who have done more harm in this world during our times than the evil man whose name you invoked here.
Obviously, you are not actually him, but, if you were, I wish you’d at least own up to murdering those innocent civilians in MH17, and ultimately be held accountable for your war crimes in Ukraine, Georgia, Syria and elsewhere.
Anyhoo, back to impersonating present-day mass-murdering villains, I guess… for the ‘lulz.’ Oh, and Stalin looked ‘stronger’ (it was the mustache.)