The Mystery at 36,000 Feet: What Hit United Flight 1093?

Update: Since this story was published, a possible lead has emerged in the mystery of what struck United Flight 1093 last Thursday. A weather balloon company’s CEO has come forward, saying he believes one of his own balloons was involved. Full story here.

Something hit a United Airlines jet cruising high over Utah early Thursday morning, and no one knows what it was.

United Flight 1093 departed Denver International Airport (DEN) at 0606 local time, bound for Los Angeles (LAX) on 16 October 2025. The aircraft, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 registered N17327, climbed uneventfully toward cruising altitude.

Then, somewhere about 180 nautical miles southeast of Salt Lake City, something slammed into the windshield with tremendous force.

The outer glass fractured. One of the pilots was injured. In photos shared online, the captain appeared to have injuries consistent with shattered glass: his forearm bloodied, shards of broken glass strewn across the flight deck.

Scorch marks appeared across the impacted section. Whatever hit the aircraft left no debris, no residue, and no clear explanation.

Windshields Have Broken Inflight But This Seems Like An Unprecedented Event

The Boeing 737 MAX 8 pushed back from the gate at DEN at 0551 local time, about nine minutes ahead of schedule. Flight 1093 lifted off at 0606 and climbed westward into a calm dawn. For the first half hour, everything was routine.

Then, roughly 37 minutes into the flight, ADS-B data shows the jet abruptly began descending from its cruising altitude of FL360 to FL260.

Based on that information, we can surmise the impact occurred roughly around 0643.

High above Moab, in southern Utah, the outer pane of the cockpit windshield shattered. The blow was strong enough to shear nearby rivets and send shards of glass flying across the flight deck. In photos shared online, the captain’s forearm appears bloodied, the result of lacerations consistent with flying glass. Tiny shards were reportedly scattered across the instrument panel. Scorch marks spiderwebbed outward from the point of impact, dark against the fractured laminate, a sign that whatever hit the glass left behind more than just cracks.

The crew leveled the jet at FL260 and declared an emergency with air traffic control. They turned north toward Salt Lake City (SLC). The Boeing flew normally for 50 minutes before touching down safely on Runway 16L at 0733 local time. There was no loss of pressurization. All 140 passengers and crew disembarked safely.

Hats off to the crew for maintaining a calm and professional flight deck amid what had to be quite a terrifying situation.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating. The agency confirmed on X that it is “looking into an in-flight windshield failure with unknown cause.” Until the analysis is complete, the aviation community is left to wonder: what exactly hit that airplane?

(Probably) Not a Bird

Bird strikes at cruise altitude are extremely rare. The sheared rivets suggest the impact involved something solid and dense, not the soft biological material typical of bird strikes. And there were no feathers, blood, or tissue found.

At FL360, the jet was flying well above the range of almost all known bird species. The Rüppell’s vulture holds the world record for the highest bird flight at 37,100 feet, recorded during a 1973 collision with a jet engine over the Ivory Coast. But that species is native to Africa, not Utah.

While there have been a handful of stray sightings in North America, its presence here would be extraordinary.

The next-highest avian flyers, like the common crane, have been observed at 33,000 feet, still below where United 1093 was struck. In North America, the mallard duck holds the title of the continent’s highest-flying avian at just over 21,000 feet. The highest recorded bird strike in the US is 31,300 feet.

So while a bird strike is not impossible, it’s almost certainly not the explanation here.

Could It Have Been Space Debris?

If not a bird, then maybe something from above. A micrometeorite? A fragment of orbital junk? Both are possible, but both stretch probability to the breaking point.

A micrometeorite would typically be traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour. At that velocity, it would have likely punched a hole through the fuselage, not just cracked the windshield. Space debris is another possibility, but the FAA estimates the odds of a piece of orbital material striking a commercial jetliner at about one in a trillion.

Still, several online reports claim the captain said he caught a glimpse of something metallic just before impact. If that proves true, and if the investigation finds metallic residue inconsistent with aircraft materials, this could mark the first known instance of space debris striking a passenger airliner.

That would not only be unprecedented in aviation history, but it would also add new urgency to the growing concern over the tens of thousands of objects orbiting Earth. NASA currently tracks roughly 31,000 pieces of space debris larger than four inches.

Could It Have Come From Within?

There’s another possibility: the damage might have come from inside the windshield itself. Commercial airliner windshields are multilayered, built from multiple panes of glass and plastic laminate bonded together with embedded heating elements. Those heating systems prevent ice buildup at altitude but can occasionally malfunction.

When that happens, electrical arcing can leave scorch marks and sudden cracks. The sound of such an event is loud enough to startle crews, and flying shards can injure pilots. However, this type of internal failure wouldn’t explain the sheared rivets, or why the impact appeared to come from the outside.

United’s Response

United issued a brief statement:

“On Thursday, United Flight 1093 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.”

United Airlines Statement on Flight 1093

The airline referred further questions to the NTSB. Meanwhile, N17327 was ferried to Chicago/Rockford International Airport (RFD) for inspection and repairs.

Theories, Speculation, and the Unknown

Was it a rogue vulture wandering thousands of miles from home? Another Chinese spy balloon? A fleck of orbital junk reentering the atmosphere? A meteorite fragment too small to vaporize but large enough to do damage? A drone? Weather balloon? Or something else entirely? ::cue X-Files music::

Whatever “it” was, it left scorch marks, shattered glass, an injured captain, and more questions than answers.

If this turns out to be space debris, it would be a first in aviation history and a sobering sign that the skies are growing more crowded not just with airplanes, but with fragments of our technological past orbiting overhead.

Until the investigation concludes, one thing is certain: something hit a 737 MAX 8 flying high above Utah, and no one knows what.

With the NTSB involved, we will keep an eye out for updates and will be following the story of United Flight 1093 very closely.