No meteorite after all: US plane collided with weather balloon from startup
Last week, a US aircraft was damaged at cruising altitude, the cause of which was unclear. Now a startup has come forward and taken responsibility.
A weather balloon from Windborne
(Image: Windborne)
The United Airlines passenger jet, damaged during a flight over the USA, was apparently not hit by an object from space, but collided with a weather balloon. This was announced by the US company Windborne, which operates particularly long-lasting weather balloons for collecting weather data in the atmosphere.
An investigation into a possible connection to the damage to the aircraft began on Sunday when an amateur radio operator on the microblogging service X pointed out that the weather balloon had stopped sending data at the appropriate time. Initial findings have been sent to the US authorities NTSB and FAA, and changes are to be made to their own weather balloons.
Weather balloons for data collection
The incident occurred last Thursday when a Boeing 737-8 suffered a crack in its windshield at cruising altitude over the US state of Utah. According to photos shared online, the pilot was slightly injured, but no one else was harmed. The aircraft was diverted, and the passengers continued their journey on another plane. Due to a statement from the pilot, it was initially speculated that the windshield had been hit by a piece of space debris or a meteorite. There were no indications of an active weather balloon there at the time.
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Windborne was founded in 2019. The company develops extremely long-lasting weather balloons that collect data high in the atmosphere for AI-powered weather forecasts. These are now also being purchased by US authorities, as reported by US magazine Time a few days ago. The background is the massive job cuts by the US government, which mean that the US climate agency NOAA can no longer launch weather balloons itself to the usual extent. The start-up has now assured that changes have already been implemented to ensure that its own weather balloons spend less time at the cruising altitude of aircraft. In addition, the balloons are supposed to avoid aircraft using their location data.
(mho)
