On: UA 1093

[celeritascelery]

In hindsight, the fact that it was probably a balloon and not space debris makes a lot of sense. Something falling from space would only spend a few seconds at most in the zone where airplanes cruise but a weather balloon would be there significantly longer. Makes the chance of collisions much higher.

[throwaway48476 → celeritascelery]

There are thousands of flights every day for decades. There's going to be a collision at some point.

[blackcatsec → celeritascelery]

I mean, it also makes sense considering space debris would have hit that plane with significantly more force than a busted window.

[Polizeiposaune → blackcatsec]

Really depends on how big the space debris was and whether it had slowed to terminal velocity (the speed where the force of gravity equals the force of drag).

I'd rather be in a plane hit by 1 gram piece of space debris than in one that hit a 1kg sandbag hanging from a balloon.