Debris from Space - meteor or metal and our a/c

[Jetscream 32]

Just saw this on BBC news and whilst we dont know exact location and track etc, bottom line is something hot, molten, fast and from above could really ruin our day if we were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Burning fireball plummeting to Earth seen on Devon beach camera - BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-devon-40145662/burning-fireball-plummeting-to-earth-seen-on-devon-beach-camera)

Has there been any known incidents of stuff falling out of space and thwacking a commercial a/c in flight?

Gives me the "eeby jeebies" as you'd unlikely have any warning it would just be instant.

Sensible thoughts welcome, especially when you look at how busy airspace is and in particular how many per day track that region...
:ooh:

[AerocatS2A]

Just as much of a worry walking down the road or driving in your car. If it's a big one it can wipe out the whole population. Bottom line: Don't worry about things you can't do anything about.

[Goldenrivett]

Gives me the "eeby jeebies" as you'd unlikely have any warning it would just be instant.

From meteorite-space-earth (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/13/meteorite-space-earth)
"If an individual makes a target of say around 1 sq metre, then assuming a random landing place there is around a one in 20,000,000,000,000 chance of them being hit – that's the same chance as flipping a coin 44 times in a row and it coming up heads every time. Or slightly better than the chance of winning the lottery twice in a row."

Do the maths, work out the area of your aircraft and divide the above odds then ask yourself,
"Well... do I feel lucky?"

[Jetscream 32]

That answers why i didn't win the 130+ euromillions last week..... Doh!

In all seriousness, yep absolutely right zero we can do and not worth worrying about, but clearly the risk is increasing daily with the amount of stuff being chucked up into orbit and just wondering if anyone else had same thoughts or had done any tech studies etc.. All hypothetical and random.

[G0ULI]

The really fast moving stuff like meteorites are random events that are impossible to predict or avoid. Meteors on the other hand may look spectacular but fail to reach the ground, they burn up completely several miles above the Earth's surface.

NASA tracks all space junk floating around in orbit that is larger than an orange. That is the minimum sized object that is likely to survive a fall through the atmosphere to earth without burning up. Warnings are issued for larger objects that are expected to reach the surface intact.

Wherever possible, used satellites and launch stages are deorbited in such a manner as to fall into the ocean, well away from populated areas. Since 70% of the Earth's surface is water, space debris of any sort is most likely to land in water.

As far as can be ascertained, there are only two people who are known to have been struck or injured by meteorites. It really is a very rare event.

[dixi188]

I have seen bright objects in the sky that appear to be meteors or space debris, as have most aviators who fly at night. Always found them interesting and not at all threatening.

I doubt the one shown on the BBC reached the surface, or anywhere near the level of airliners before burning up.

[OldLurker]

Most meteors and space debris burn up over 50 km up – most of us aren't flying that high yet awhile. Some objects of both types, both small and big, do reach the ground from time to time, hence the various meteorite impact craters around the world. As mentioned above, the chance is very very very small, which is all we have to comfort ourselves with. In 2007 a LAN Chile aircraft reported debris passing about five miles distant over the Pacific (Jet's flaming space junk scare (http://www.smh.com.au/news/travel/jets-flaming-space-junk-scare/2007/03/28/1174761528947.html)).

[dixi188]

I saw a hole in an elevator of a BAC 1-11 that was suggested could be a meteor until it was noticed the deformation was upwards. It was a bullet hole and the aircraft had flown to Belfast the day before. 1972 ish.

As an aside, I was in Miami for New Year 1998. There was a lot of gunfire at midnight in the area around the airport and several splashes in the hotel swimming pool. I wonder if any aircraft get damaged during these celebrations.

[megan]

Do a search and you'll find folks have been hit by meteors, a young boy on the hand, a woman in bed, one famous case was a car where it created a hole in the boot.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0611/peekskill_thomas.jpg

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061119.html

[noflynomore]

There was a lot of gunfire at midnight in the area around the airport and several splashes in the hotel swimming pool. I wonder if any aircraft get damaged during these celebrations.
I have a tantalising picture in my head of thousands of frogs being startled by gunfire and damaging aircraft by jumping on them...

[Uplinker]

We were hit by something in the cruise, which shattered the outside pane of the Captain's windshield.

I have a photo, but it won't cut and paste onto here.

Anybody know how I get a photo onto Pprune?

[RedhillPhil]

Flight MH 370. Could it have been struck in the cockpit area?

[noflynomore]

Anybody know how I get a photo onto Pprune?

Try the FAQ link at the top of the page for chapter and verse but esentially you need to download it to a photo hosting site like photobucket where it acquires a URL. Start your post and then click on the Insert Image button (square icon with image of a mountain found on the screen where you compose your posts - by the capitals/italics/underline buttons) and paste that URL into it.

Sounds like a faff but it's pretty easy.

[Uplinker]

OK, thanks. I won't bother then, since photobucket requires you to set up an account with personal data.

Anyway, we were hit by something small in the cruise at FL350 which shattered the outside pane of our LHS windshield. There are tight concentric rings of cracks around the hit point, and long cracks radiating out from that. Only thing it could have been at that altitude as far as I can guess would be a small solid object moving at high speed:- the remains of a micrometeorite perhaps? Or possibly a small lump of ice from another aircraft?

[extreme P]

Courtesy of Uplinker.

http://i.imgur.com/gMJqKOw.jpg

[G0ULI]

While the damage could be caused by an impact, from the location I suspect it might just be water ice freezing in a damaged seal between the glass and the frame.

Having witnessed a sealed cast iron cylinder full of water explode like a bomb and embed bits of metal two inches into the walls and ceiling when frozen with a CO2 extinguisher, there would certainly be enough energy to shatter even the toughest glass. School experiments like that are no longer permitted unfortunately. :)

Just simply on the balance of probability, I would bet on a fault or previous damage to the window or frame mounting rather than a meteorite impact. Even a high flying drone is more likely.

[Uplinker]

@extreme P, thanks for processing my image.:ok:

@Gouli, yes that is a possibility, but if water freezing in the seals was the reason, I would expect it to happen a lot more often? We had been airborne for around half an hour when this happened, by which time I would expect any water drops we acquired in the climb to have been removed by the slip stream, long before they could freeze?

When our incident occurred, I happened to be looking down into my flight bag. I heard a loud bang - and it sounded as though the Cap had dropped a chart folder onto the cockpit floor. If this shattering was caused by water expanding into ice, I wouldn't expect to have heard a bang, just a cracking sound, but we felt and heard a physical 'thump' when the glass shattered.