7 ms·
Speculation-free facts: https://avherald.com/h?article=52e80701 https://avherald.com/h?article=52e80701 https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL1093/history
by JBiserkov 1y ago
Speculation-free facts: https://avherald.com/h?article=52e80701 https://avherald.com/h?article=52e80701
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL1093/history/20251016/1210Z/KDEN/KLAX https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL1093/history/2025...
- gpm 1y agoInteresting that there's been a bird strike at that altitude before (per the comments in avherald). I didn't know birds flew that high.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoI can't remember the species, but there's a bird that files crazy high. I think it's a vulture.
- marcosdumay 1y agoYes, vultures can fly crazy high, and do a lot of damage to aircraft. They are a well-known nemesis of military planes, that fly faster and don't have redundancy to survive a hit.
- dotancohen 1y agoIt should be noted that many species are occasionally hit at altitudes thought to be impossible for them to fly at. One notable example: https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/flying-fish/ https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/flying-fish/
- marcosdumay 1y agoYeah, if I had to predict that kind of collision with fauna, I would fail.
- JoelMcCracken 1y agoGiven this happened 400 ft past the end of the runway, I really don’t think the altitude involved would be very surprising
- marcosdumay 1y agoWell, the species in question tend to not veer much higher than the water level.
- JoelMcCracken 1y agohttps://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/math/speed-distance-time-calculator.php?given_data=ds_va_dt&ds=400&ds_units=foot&va=180&va_units=mile+per+hour&dt_units=second&given_data_last=ds_va_dt&action=solve https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/math/speed-distan... 180 mph taken from a bit of googling, ballpark figure on upper end. So this was really immediately after takeoff. My understanding of commercial airliners is they usually fly fairly parallel with the ground just after takeoff to pick up speed before ascending, so I would guess they hadn’t much altitude at all. Anyway it’s a very interesting article, ty to poster! And it was an interesting question to think about.
- snowwrestler 1y agoOne of the best Far Side comics: https://store.gocomics.com/product/the-far-side-comic-art-print-mountain-goat-in-cloud-bank/ https://store.gocomics.com/product/the-far-side-comic-art-pr...
- michaelcampbell 1y ago> They are a well-known nemesis of military planes, that fly faster and don't have redundancy to survive a hit. Wait, military aircraft have LESS redundancy to survive "hits" than civil?
- mynegation 1y agoCivil aircraft usually have at least two engines and military - usually one.
- lazide 1y agoHaha, no. Most military aircraft have multiple engines.
- topkai22 1y agoThat might be technically true, but the F35 and F16 are both single engine aircraft and IIRC constitute the bulk of at least the US air force’s combat aircraft.
- lazide 1y agoB2, F117, B52, P9, F22, F14, F18, C130, C17, C5, CH47, AH-64, SR71, U2, A10, and on and on just to give some recent examples. There are a few single engine aircraft roles (including the F104), but they are not and have never been the bulk of active serving aircraft. It isn’t just ‘technically’ true.
- mango7283 1y agoBe that as it may, the workhorse combat aircraft of most NATO air forces and the USAF itself is the F-16, a single-engine fighter, and its nominal replacement, the F-35 is also single engine. You can try to make your point by comparing those vs the numbers of F-15s, F/A-18s, F-Fs, Rafales, Eurofighters and so on in service vs the F-16 and F-35, but bringing C130s and C17s into it is irrelevant, those are not "combat aircraft". edit: ah but they are "military aircraft", sure. fine.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoThat probably depends on the plane. The A-10 Warthog is known for being quite tough. It operates relatively slowly, at small-arms altitudes, so it can take a licking.
- grapesodaaaaa 1y agoIn this case, it should be easy to detect genetic or biological material if it was a meat sack strike & rule out space debris. They don’t tend to do well when hit at several hundred mph. The only other thing really up that high would be space debris, weather balloon payload (the balloon itself is very thin and soft), or maybe a sounding rocket (but don’t these come with NOTAMs?).
- potato3732842 1y agoOr just look for the blood splat. A bird at hundreds of miles an hour leaves a heck of a blood trail.
- fyver 1y agoHe took a duck in the face at 250 knots.
- rogerrogerr 1y agoNOTAMs are kind of a joke.
- jddj 1y agoGo for a scroll up https://neal.fun/space-elevator/ https://neal.fun/space-elevator/
- em3rgent0rdr 1y agoThis made my day!
- ghxst 1y agoThis is awesome
- mrexroad 1y agoThank you.
- Razengan 1y agoLove websites like this, reminding you why the internet exists :) Wish it used a larger more readable font or at least had an option for one though.
- db48x 1y agoInstead of complaining about individual sites, learn to use your browser more effectively. They can all zoom in on things, and any good one will let you set a minimum font size. Set that to the smallest size that you can easily read and instantly no website anywhere will ever have text that is too small to read.
- Arch-TK 1y agoAnd a bunch of poorly written websites will break :P
- db48x 1y agoNo, not generally. 99% of all webpages you visit will be perfectly fine. At most you might notice some misalignment between graphical and text elements on the page, but most pages don’t rely on that for anything important.
- ardel95 1y agoDemoiselle crane flies over Himalayas and over Everest during its yearly migration, so it'd be flying at least 30k feet high. I only know that from Planet Earth documentary, which was such a great show!
- tetris11 1y agoOnly 4k feet off the ground though, given the height of Everest
- gus_massa 1y agoIt hit the plane on the front. Doesn't something like a bird that flies at a stable altitude increase the chance of a collision on the front?
- SideburnsOfDoom 1y agoYes, however this incident appears to have been caused by an object smaller and denser than a bird. Likely candidates are 1) some metal payload dangling from a defunct high-altitude balloon and 2) space rock.
- rurban 1y agoIt will be upgraded from incident to accident also soon, given the photo of the captains arm. And we didn't see the FO arm, who is in ED