Max-8 Windshield Impacted

[Matt Harper]

Somewhat bizarre incident on Thursday last. A United Boeing 737 Max-8 flying from Denver CO to LAX had a windshield panel smashed by a foreign object - while in the cruise at 36,000 ft. Flight crew was injured by glass shards.

What the foreign object was, is still the subject of some speculation/debate.

[RacingStripes]

Scott Manley has done a video on it as some speculated that it was a satalite. Most likely not, a most probable guess is a weather balloon.

Edited by RacingStripes on Tuesday 21st October 00:44

[Simpo Two]

Looks like windshields should have an internal layer of plastic to stop that.

[sherman]

You do get migrating large birds like swans or geese at that altitude but Im not seeing any blood or feathers.

[normalbloke]

Simpo Two said:

Looks like windshields should have an internal layer of plastic to stop that.

It’s called spalling.

[normalbloke]

sherman said:

You do get migrating large birds like swans or geese at that altitude but Im not seeing any blood or feathers.

Very,very,very rarely,

[sherman]

normalbloke said:

sherman said:

You do get migrating large birds like swans or geese at that altitude but Im not seeing any blood or feathers.

Very,very,very rarely,

About as rarely as a plane hitting an object at 36000ft

[Richard-D]

Simpo Two said:

Looks like windshields should have an internal layer of plastic to stop that.

They're usually 3 layers, hard(ish) outer and inner with a rubberised middle layer. I don't know specifically for a 737, but can't see why it would be different.

Not a bird strike as others have said, I've dealt with a few and they're very messy.

[ChocolateFrog]

Birds explode at 100mph let alone 600.

[Russ35]

Looks like it was a WindborneWx long duration weather balloon.

WindborneWx CEO John Dean (@johndeanl on X) has put a post up.

https://x.com/johndeanl

[5 In a Row]

Looks like its a good job it hit near the edge of the screen rather than in the middle of it.

[hidetheelephants]

Russ35 said:

Looks like it was a WindborneWx long duration weather balloon.

WindborneWx CEO John Dean (@johndeanl on X) has put a post up.

https://x.com/johndeanl

Seems plausible.

[Gary29]

I'll bet that woke the pilots up

It's bad enough when a stone flicks into your windscreen on the M6 at 70mph.

[eharding]

hidetheelephants said:

Russ35 said:

Looks like it was a WindborneWx long duration weather balloon.

WindborneWx CEO John Dean (@johndeanl on X) has put a post up.

https://x.com/johndeanl

Seems plausible.

Presumably WindborneWx could see from their logs that one of their units in that area went off line at suspiciously the same time the impact was reported by the 737.

I saw the issue being raised of why all of these radionsondes don't carry standard Mode S transponders so that suitably equipped air traffic would benefit from TCAS advisories, the problem being that the power and mass requirements for certified Mode S - whilst being insignificant for powered aircraft - are impracticable for these sort of featherweight weather balloons. Other more efficient forms of electronic conspicuity exist, but integrating them with existing commercial air traffic systems isn't going to happen any time soon. It's going to be an interesting one for the FAA, and probably the commercial lawyers, to sort out though.

[gotoPzero]

Very very lucky that it wasn't more serious if it was a weather balloon as the sensor payload can be quite large at 500+mph a big hunk of metal and plastic will slice and dice straight through a wing. Reminds me very much of the GOL 737 that was only just clipped by a biz jet. Biz jet lost its wing tip but landed safe the 737 was a total loss - 160 on board IIRC.