3 ms·

Bay Area tech CEO says test project likely struck United flight at 36,000 feet

randycupertino 1y ago
Archive link: https://archive.ph/ksGsx https://archive.ph/ksGsx > WindBorne Systems, a Palo Alto startup that uses atmospheric balloons to collect weather data for AI-based forecast models, has come forward to say that they believe they may be responsible for the object that hit the windshield. > “Yes, I think this was a WindBorne balloon. We learned about UA1093 and the potential that it was related to one of our balloons at 11pm PT on Sunday and immediately looked into it,” WindBorne CEO John Dean posted on social media. “At 6am PT, we sent our preliminary investigation to both NTSB and FAA, and are working with both of them to investigate further.”
gnabgib 1y ago
Discussions It was a weather balloon, not space debris, that struck a United Airlines plane (12 points, 1 day ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45652120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45652120 United MAX Hit by Falling Object at 36,000 Feet (402 points, 3 days ago, 225 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45636285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45636285 Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday? (36 points, 3 days ago, 56 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45633191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45633191 reply
- randycupertino 1y ago
  Interesting that it was an ai-tech weather balloon that hit the plane at 36,000 ft and not space debris like originally assumed! Very fortunate that cabin pressure was maintained, there were no other major systems malfunctions and the aircraft was able to land safely in Salt Lake City. Kind of crazy that even a lightweight object like a weather balloon imparts enough force to crack open a cockpit window. The 30,000-40,000 ft range is pretty heavily occupied by commercial airliners so having AI weather balloons floating around at those altitudes in a flight path seems pretty risky without real-time coordination with air traffic control. Imagine if this happened at night, or in a thunderstorm or fog etc where they couldn't immediately land safely, might have been a lot worse.
  - ewoodrich 1y ago
    It made more sense after seeing one of the pics posted of the ballast that is basically a bag of sand. https://xcancel.com/DJSnM/status/1980433951551533203#m https://xcancel.com/DJSnM/status/1980433951551533203#m
  - jtokoph 1y ago
    The other interesting thing is that these airliners follow common waypoints as if they are sky highways. It seems like it would be easy to avoid this airspace. Example: https://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/summer11articles/summer11gifs/p34p1-lg.jpg https://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/summer11articles/summer11g...
okdood64 1y ago
Sensationalist... It was just a weather balloon. Non-zero chance these things happen.
- randycupertino 1y ago
  I don't know if it necessarily sensationalist, a previous flight hit a weather balloon and crashed, all 45 onboard people died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_1661 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_1661

Archive link: https://archive.ph/ksGsx https://archive.ph/ksGsx > WindBorne Systems, a Palo Alto startup that uses atmospheric balloons to collect weather data for AI-based forecast models, has come forward to say that they believe they may be responsible for the object that hit the windshield. > “Yes, I think this was a WindBorne balloon. We learned about UA1093 and the potential that it was related to one of our balloons at 11pm PT on Sunday and immediately looked into it,” WindBorne CEO John Dean posted on social media. “At 6am PT, we sent our preliminary investigation to both NTSB and FAA, and are working with both of them to investigate further.”

gnabgib 1y ago

Discussions It was a weather balloon, not space debris, that struck a United Airlines plane (12 points, 1 day ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45652120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45652120 United MAX Hit by Falling Object at 36,000 Feet (402 points, 3 days ago, 225 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45636285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45636285 Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday? (36 points, 3 days ago, 56 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45633191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45633191 reply

randycupertino 1y ago
Interesting that it was an ai-tech weather balloon that hit the plane at 36,000 ft and not space debris like originally assumed! Very fortunate that cabin pressure was maintained, there were no other major systems malfunctions and the aircraft was able to land safely in Salt Lake City. Kind of crazy that even a lightweight object like a weather balloon imparts enough force to crack open a cockpit window. The 30,000-40,000 ft range is pretty heavily occupied by commercial airliners so having AI weather balloons floating around at those altitudes in a flight path seems pretty risky without real-time coordination with air traffic control. Imagine if this happened at night, or in a thunderstorm or fog etc where they couldn't immediately land safely, might have been a lot worse.
- ewoodrich 1y ago
  It made more sense after seeing one of the pics posted of the ballast that is basically a bag of sand. https://xcancel.com/DJSnM/status/1980433951551533203#m https://xcancel.com/DJSnM/status/1980433951551533203#m
- jtokoph 1y ago
  The other interesting thing is that these airliners follow common waypoints as if they are sky highways. It seems like it would be easy to avoid this airspace. Example: https://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/summer11articles/summer11gifs/p34p1-lg.jpg https://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/summer11articles/summer11g...

okdood64 1y ago

Sensationalist... It was just a weather balloon. Non-zero chance these things happen.

randycupertino 1y ago
I don't know if it necessarily sensationalist, a previous flight hit a weather balloon and crashed, all 45 onboard people died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_1661 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_1661