Investigators say the origin of an object that reportedly collided with a United Airlines aircraft last week, causing damage to its windshield and minor injuries to a pilot, remains unknown.
The harrowing incident occurred last week on Thursday October 16, 2025, at approximately 6:44 AM MDT. The aircraft, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, had been traveling from Denver to Los Angeles when members of the crew reported hearing a loud bang as an object apparently struck the front of the aircraft.
Damage was quickly observed on the right side of the aircraft’s windshield, prompting a diversion to Salt Lake City, where the aircraft safely landed approximately 50 minutes later.
“Unfortunately we have some bad news,” one of the pilots was heard saying over the aircraft intercom according to Heather Ramsey, a passenger aboard the flight at the time of the incident.
“The aircraft has collided with an object,” the pilot told passengers during the announcement.
Ramsey, who shared her account with Fox 11 Los Angeles, said she overheard one of the flight attendants warning other members of the crew to move to the back of the aircraft and to immediately stop in-flight service.
“It was really scary,” Ramsey said, adding that she and other passengers were “holding our breath until the very end.”
The 134 passengers on board the flight were transferred to another aircraft once they reached Salt Lake City, which carried them on to their destination in Los Angeles.
Shortly after the incident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued a statement saying the aircraft had safely made its way Salt Lake City, and that it was collecting information about the incident.
“The NTSB is investigating a cracked windscreen on a Boeing 737-8 during cruise flight near Moab, Utah, Thursday,” a portion of the statement read. “Operating as United flight 1093 from DEN to LAX, airplane diverted safely to SLC.”
The NTSB also said that the damaged windscreen had been sent to a laboratory where it would be examined to try to determine what the object that struck the aircraft might have been, as speculations ensue about whether debris from a spacecraft reentry, or even a potential meteor impact, could have been involved.
“[P]eople are starting to discuss what this might have been, and the ‘space debris’ (whatever that ends up being) idea is most definitely -not- being dismissed as a possibility,” wrote user JonNYC in a posting about the incident on X.
However, Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer with the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told The Debrief in an email that there were “no known reentry matches” that link the incident to any spacecraft falling to Earth at the time.
In an update on his website, McDowell noted that there had been three objects that were successfully tracked during reentry last Thursday, involving a Starlink satellite and a pair of Chinese payloads.
“All are ruled out,” McDowell wrote, confirming none of these three objects had been near the location where the object struck the United Airlines flight last week.
While space debris has seemingly been ruled out for now regarding the United Airlines incident last week, McDowell has nonetheless raised concerns over the rise in Starlink satellite reentries, which he says are occurring on a daily basis.
In a statement provided to The Debrief earlier this month, McDowell said that “considering also non-Starlink reentries, there is a risk from reentering debris that I am not comfortable with,” adding that he believes “we should move to banning uncontrolled reentry from large (1 ton plus) space objects.”
Dr. Siamak Hesar, an expert on space debris reentries and CEO of Kayhan Space, similarly told The Debrief that while it is uncommon for space debris reentry to reach flight altitudes, such events are not unheard of, although it requires the debris to be fairly large.
“The material composition also plays a critical role, as objects made from heat-resistant materials have a much greater chance of partially surviving reentry,” Hesar told The Debrief. “Smaller fragments or components made of lighter materials typically disintegrate completely in the upper atmosphere before ever reaching air traffic altitudes.”
Hesar added that the odds of such incidents occurring “are gradually increasing due to the growing number of satellites and spacecraft being launched into orbit.”
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