How Likely Is Space Debris to Strike a Commercial Aircraft Inflight?

A United Airlines pilot sustained injuries after a mysterious object struck and shattered the windshield of a Boeing 737-8 flying at 36,000 feet, forcing an emergency landing in Salt Lake City. United Flight 1093 was en route from Denver to Los Angeles when the incident occurred on Thursday Oct. 16. How likely is this and how often does it happen?

Images circulating online reportedly show the pilot with bleeding and bruised arms, consistent with cuts from shattered glass. The cockpit dashboard was covered in broken glass, and photos revealed scorch marks near the impact point. United confirmed the aircraft landed safely and that passengers were transferred to another plane to continue their journey. The damaged jet remains grounded in Salt Lake City pending inspection.

While the cause of the incident remains under investigation, experts have ruled out common factors such as birds or hail, which typically pose risks only at lower altitudes. Some online observers speculated that the impact may have involved space debris or a meteor, though such events are extremely rare. A 2023 Federal Aviation Administration report placed the likelihood of space debris injuring an airline passenger at roughly one in a trillion.

Others suggested an electrical malfunction might explain the damage, though the scorch marks and glass fractures point to a high-energy impact. NASA continues to track more than 25,000 pieces of orbital debris larger than four inches, underscoring growing safety concerns as air and space traffic increase worldwide.

How Likely Is Space Debris to Strike a Commercial Jet?

A “hit” on a commercial airliner by space debris (large enough to cause significant damage) is exceedingly rare — measured in thousands of years-between-events under historic assumptions. The chance for any given year globally is somewhere in the ballpark of a few tenths of a percent or less that an aircraft would suffer a strike that causes serious injury.

Here’s a summary of what the research and regulatory reports say about how often falling space debris might hit commercial aircraft:

A study published in 2008 estimated that the annual worldwide risk of a commercial aircraft being struck by re-entering space debris was about 3 × 10⁻⁴. This figure translates to roughly one such event occurring every 3,300 years, based on the assumptions used in the study at that time.

A later report by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2021 concluded that the “annual expected human casualty due to impact of an Aircraft Downing Object”—meaning large debris capable of bringing down an aircraft—was approximately 0.001 worldwide. In simpler terms, this represents at most a 0.1% chance in any given year that such an event would result in serious injury or death in aviation.

More recent commentary from 2024 and 2025 suggests that while the overall risk remains extremely low, it is gradually increasing due to the growing number of satellite launches, re-entries, and commercial flights. One source estimated the annual probability of an “aircraft downing” caused by space debris at around 0.0007, or 7 × 10⁻⁴, according to a recent study.

Another study noted that although the likelihood of debris directly striking an aircraft is very low, the risk of uncontrolled debris re-entering over heavily trafficked airspace is significantly higher. For instance, there is an estimated 26% chance each year that an uncontrolled rocket-body re-entry will occur over densely populated and busy flight regions such as the northeastern United States and northern Europe.

It seems that the chances of space debris striking a commercial aircraft are extraordinarily rare—so rare that statistically, such an event might occur only once in several millennia. Despite the growing number of satellites, rocket launches, and re-entries increasing the amount of orbital debris, the probability of a direct impact on an aircraft remains extremely low. Most re-entering fragments burn up before reaching the lower atmosphere, and commercial flights occupy only a small portion of the sky compared to the vast expanse of potential debris paths. While experts continue to monitor the situation as space activity intensifies, current data show that the risk to passengers and crew from space debris remains virtually negligible.

Sources: AirGuide Business airguide.info, bing.com, faa.org