Weather ballon strikes plane, injures pilot

[Torque]

Weather balloon launched in Washington strikes United Airlines flight, injures pilot

A United Airlines Boeing 737-8 diverted to Salt Lake City last month after striking a Washington-based weather balloon at 36,000 feet.

komonews.com

 

[AMann]

Old news. It was the plane that struck the weather balloon and it appears that either the FAA did not issue a NOTAM about it, or the pilots didn’t get it, even though the company that launched it did file a flight for their balloon and knew exactly where it was.

Post in thread 'Not a threat to airplanes'

Oct 25, 2025

The weather balloon had a FAA NOTAM in place, and something probably got missed from air traffic control procedures - it wasn’t the balloon’s fault, it was doing everything correctly! Seriously- Windborne (the balloon’s operator) puts hundreds of these aloft for weather monitoring, and does report their positions for NOTAMS as they can track and even direct the flights of their balloons remotely, so they knew exactly where it was when the jet collided with it.

They actually have pretty cool balloons- they are sounding balloons - in that they can be remotely directed or programmed...

• AMann

• 

 

[Torque]

Old news. It was the plane that struck the weather balloon and it appears that either the FAA did not issue a NOTAM about it, or the pilots didn’t get it, even though the company that launched it did file a flight for their balloon and knew exactly where it was.

Post in thread 'Not a threat to airplanes'

Oct 25, 2025

The weather balloon had a FAA NOTAM in place, and something probably got missed from air traffic control procedures - it wasn’t the balloon’s fault, it was doing everything correctly! Seriously- Windborne (the balloon’s operator) puts hundreds of these aloft for weather monitoring, and does report their positions for NOTAMS as they can track and even direct the flights of their balloons remotely, so they knew exactly where it was when the jet collided with it.

They actually have pretty cool balloons- they are sounding balloons - in that they can be remotely directed or programmed...

• AMann

• 

Post in thread 'Not a threat to airplanes'

Oct 25, 2025

The weather balloon had a FAA NOTAM in place, and something probably got missed from air traffic control procedures - it wasn’t the balloon’s fault, it was doing everything correctly! Seriously- Windborne (the balloon’s operator) puts hundreds of these aloft for weather monitoring, and does report their positions for NOTAMS as they can track and even direct the flights of their balloons remotely, so they knew exactly where it was when the jet collided with it.

They actually have pretty cool balloons- they are sounding balloons - in that they can be remotely directed or programmed...

• AMann

• 

Yup, I tried to find the original post and couldn't. I remembered there was a lot of doubt by members here that a weather ballon could do that amount of damage. This article has conformation by the weather balloon company that it was their balloon that struck the plane.

 

[AMann]

Windbourne is being proactive by working on some remediation to lessen the potential of their balloons being hit by aircraft, as well as decreasing the damage they can do if hit - their blog describes much more detail and how they are working on new designs for their ballast system:

Blog | WindBorne

Thoughts on the future of environmental and weather intelligence, from the people and teams shaping it.

windbornesystems.com

 

[GFields]

Glad to know that there was no drone involved

 

[MS Coast]

"WindBorne told investigators its balloons are made from thin plastic film with no rigid structural components, and its ballast system uses low-density silica."

What about the instrument package the balloon was carrying? I suspect that's what caused the damage to the aircraft.

 

[anotherlab]

Old news. It was the plane that struck the weather balloon and it appears that either the FAA did not issue a NOTAM about it, or the pilots didn’t get it, even though the company that launched it did file a flight for their balloon and knew exactly where it was.

Post in thread 'Not a threat to airplanes'

Oct 25, 2025

The weather balloon had a FAA NOTAM in place, and something probably got missed from air traffic control procedures - it wasn’t the balloon’s fault, it was doing everything correctly! Seriously- Windborne (the balloon’s operator) puts hundreds of these aloft for weather monitoring, and does report their positions for NOTAMS as they can track and even direct the flights of their balloons remotely, so they knew exactly where it was when the jet collided with it.

They actually have pretty cool balloons- they are sounding balloons - in that they can be remotely directed or programmed...

• AMann

• 

According to the article, the NOTAM had expired that morning.

 

[AMann]

According to the article, the NOTAM had expired that morning.

Oops

 

[Meta4]

NTSB Preliminary Report here:

https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/201877/pdf

 

[anotherlab]

NTSB Preliminary Report here:

https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/201877/pdf

I think they are going to find that there was a defect of some sort with that windshield. They are designed to take the impact of a bird weighing up to 4 lbs. The WindBorne GSB weighs about 2.6 lbs. They are designed to more or less bounce off aircraft without causing damage.

If you want read about how they started tracking which birds were likely to hit which aircraft, I would suggest The Feather Detective by Chris Sweeney.