A Cool Commercial Flight

[Stewartb]

My Sunday flight was cancelled. The best I could do was to get out of Austin on Monday. Went early. Hours early. To allow wifey to get back home ahead of the weather. Almost there and I get a text that my flight will be a couple of hours late. Oh well, make the arrangements to change the connection and head to the bar for a slow afternoon. SO what's cool about that? Over Idaho, seemingly right outside my window a meteor entered the atmosphere and burned a trail through the sky in the same general direction that we were flying. I had a bird's eye view of the entire event, and being that we were going 500mph in the same direction, an extended view. Very, very cool. And to top it off, the rest of the way into Seattle had northern lights illuminating the northern sky. Not an everyday event that far south. Fun stuff.

 

[Art VanDelay]

I'll take the veiw outside my "office" window any day ! Poor shlubs down in the world of cubicles kill themselves to get that corner office - no thanks.

 

[AggieMike88]

Cool story, but it must be said...

 

[Stewartb]

Yes, my wife, the science nerd, asked whether I'd taken video. Ruh roh... that never occurred to me. Here's a youtube clip of the same event although my viewpoint was MUCH more spectacular and it lasted much longer.

http://magicvalley.com/meteor-over-rexburg-idaho/youtube_b4b1eb97-5626-5a2d-a7ea-d5c6438e5fea.html

 

[Morgan3820]

I wonder what the chances are of a meteor actually hitting an airplane in flight?

 

[RyanB]

Neat, i bet that was quite the show

 

[jordane93]

Cool story, but it must be said...

 

[AggieMike88]

I wonder what the chances are of a meteor actually hitting an airplane in flight?

Likely slightly the same as a toilet seat from the old Soyuz space station hitting a young girl named George and spawning into a very odd comedy/drama TV series.

 

[Art VanDelay]

I wonder what the chances are of a meteor actually hitting an airplane in flight?

I don't know about that but I did once work for a Chief Pilot that if something like that were to occur he was certain it was somehow your fault !

 

[Hank S]

I don't know about that but I did once work for a Chief Pilot that if something like that were to occur he was certain it was somehow your fault !

"See and avoid!"

I've had a boss like that . . . .

 

[dans2992]

I don't know about that but I did once work for a Chief Pilot that if something like that were to occur he was certain it was somehow your fault !

Don't worry, I'm sure the FAA will require the asteroid to equip with ADS-B out. And the little green man flying it will need a class 3 medical!

 

[petrolero]

It may have been this Chinese rocket reentering the atmosphere. From the article it sounds like the same time and place as your sighting...

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/...er_western_US_as_Chinese_rocket_burns_up.html