United Windshield Explodes

[Rick A]

I don’t get how his right forearm got nailed ‘around the corner’ ie the aft, right part considering the windshield came at it from the front or even top left.
Maybe he had it up for some reason?

It all depends mostly upon the amount of hardware securing the outer edges of the perimeter of the glass window edges. The amount of impact energy momentarily forced the outer glass panel (on the edges) back inwards causing a small temporary gap.

The gap slightly opened, and tiny pieces of glass broke off the edges and deflected off a hard surface. This small high-speed fragmentation projected laterally outwards off the edges during the impact "pop". The pieces then hit something and were deflected, followed the path of least resistance.

Following the deflection, it appears a cone shaped spray pattern developed, likely traveled mostly downwards and outwards in a cone shaped pattern, becoming larger (like an upside down ice cream cone) the more distance it traveled. This explains the injury to the pilot's right arm, and to low central panel region located between the seats.

Deflections off the thick glass and polycarbonate laminate edges can project anywhere, depending up the edge breakage points, what metal surfaces it strikes, and it hits causing a major change in direction.

Because of so many variables involved, every edge impact is different.

 

[Bacho]

It's also in the first post of this thread.

The first post doesn’t show the inside of the windshield and the Twitter link doesn’t work so…

 

[Rick A]

The first post doesn’t show the inside of the windshield and the Twitter link doesn’t work so…

Last night YouTube sensation Captain Steveeve showed a close up photo of the outside of the windshield impact. The windshield completely appeared to be intact with damage to the aluminum skin just above and next to the upper corner. Of course, the glass / plastic laminates within the layers of the window of safety type windows were shattered throughout.

Interestingly, the Captain identified an allegedly small lightweight weather ballon transmitting device manufactured by "WINDBORNE" as the culprit. Apparently the small metallic component uses a couple of pounds of sand for ballast.
The outer surface of the window showed pitting on the surface upon that upper corner, which IMO confirms the object had sand or some type of abrasive material within.