A United Airlines flight diverted to Salt Lake City for a bizarre reason last Thursday while flying from Denver to Los Angeles. A mysterious object struck the windshield of the airline’s Boeing 737 Max over Utah, showering the cockpit with bits of glass. The captain suffered minor cuts, but the damaged pane held in place and the cabin remained pressurized. He reportedly claimed the object was “space debris.” The captain’s claims can only be confirmed after an investigation, but there aren’t many things a pilot could hit at 36,000 feet.
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
United Airlines Flight 1093 landed safely in Salt Lake City, and the passengers were put on another plane to LAX. The flight’s smashed windshield is headed to a National Transportation Safety Board laboratory. The agency announced on Sunday that it’s investigating the incident. The NTSB is also gathering as much information as possible to figure out what happened, from radar and weather information to flight recorder data.
It might not be space debris, but I want to believe
Images of the damaged aircraft have spread across social media like wildfire. Exterior photos showed that the object hit the top-left corner of the front right windshield. Away from the point of impact, the laminated safety glass was damaged to the point that there was no way the first officer could have looked through it. According to Ars Technica, hail or an unregulated weather balloon could also be the mystery object. However, we want to believe that it’s something from beyond the atmosphere, like a meteorite or man-made debris.
Despite the torrent of satellites that humans are launching into orbit, they generally aren’t controlled once they’re up there. SpaceX and other private space companies design their newest satellites to burn up entirely when they reach the end of service and atmospheric drag pulls them back to Earth. While the current state of affairs has developed without major incident, it might not continue for perpetuity because satellites are getting larger and new players are entering the space industry with a more lax approach to operations.
