A United Airlines flight diverted to Salt Lake City last week after the pilots discovered a crack in one of the layers of the windshield, and a weather balloon may have been what caused the crack, according to the company that owns the balloon.

Salt Lake City

A United Airlines 737 MAX traveling from Denver to Los Angeles was forced to make an emergency landing in Salt Lake City after an object struck and shattered the cockpit windshield at cruising altitude. The incident resulted in glass flying into the cockpit and reportedly injuring a pilot, though the severity of the injuries was not detailed.

Preliminary investigations suggest the object was likely a lightweight weather balloon, with Windborne Systems confirming a loss of communication with one of its balloons at the time and location of the incident. The company has coordinated with authorities and implemented safety changes, but the National Transportation Safety Board has not yet made a final determination on the cause.

Weather balloon may have cracked United plane windshield

The National Transportation Safety Board is looking into an incident involving a United Airlines 737 MAX. It was en route from Denver to Los Angeles last week when something slammed into the windshield. The plane with 134 passengers and a crew of six made an emergency landing in Salt Lake City. Chris Van Cleve now on what investigators think happened. What slammed into the windshield of United Flight 1093 Thursday at 36,000 feet? It left clear signs of an impact and sent glass flying into the cockpit apparently injuring a pilot. When the pilot came on and did the emergency broadcast where he said folks unfortunately I have some bad news. An object has collided with the aircraft and shattered a window in the cockpit. Heather Ramsey was among the 140 on board. There was so much tension and it really just felt like everyone was collectively holding their breath until the very end. Even when we touched down we didn't know a lot of the details and we didn't know how severe things were if people were injured. It now appears it was likely a lightweight weather balloon similar to this one launched by Windborne Systems. The company says it coordinates its flights with the FAA and has alerted the NTSB. CEO John Dean. We saw that the trajectory in terms of the location altitude of the balloon matched up with the aircraft trajectory and we also lost communication with this particular balloon right around the time that the incident seemed to occur and so that tells me the most likely explanation was a collision with a Windborne balloon. Weather data is important but you know there were 140 people on that airplane. Absolutely the system is designed to not pose a threat a significant threat to aircraft in the event of collision but it is critical to make sure that event like this doesn't happen again. And Windborne says they've already made safety changes but hundreds of weather balloons are launched every day in the U.S. and can fly up to 65,000 feet. They're not something that pilots can easily spot or track while flying. Ultimately it will be up to the NTSB to determine if in fact it was a weather balloon that smashed into that windshield.

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