On Oct. 16, United flight 1093 took off from Denver International Airport at 5:51 a.m. MDT and was supposed to land in Los Angeles. The plane was forced to divert to Salt Lake City International Airport after an unknown object struck the windshield. Now 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.”
The National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement released on social media on Sunday that the windscreen was being sent to their lab for testing, using “radar, weather, flight recorder data” to determine the cause of the incident.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for a comment about the structural integrity of the windshields on its 737 Max planes.
WindBorne said the company has launched more than 4,000 balloons and that it coordinates with the Federal Aviation Administration for every launch. After presenting one of its balloons as a possible cause of the collision, the company said in a statement on its website that it “immediately rolled out changes to minimize time spent between 30,000 and 40,000 feet.”
“Additionally, we are further accelerating our plans to use live flight data to autonomously avoid planes, even if the planes are at a non-standard altitude. We are also actively working on new hardware designs to further reduce impact force magnitude and concentration,” WindBorne said.
The Salt Lake City Fire Department told SFGATE there was only one minor injury. Passengers arrived at Los Angeles International Airport at 1:20 p.m. on a different plane — nearly six hours after their expected arrival.
