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Blog
 | 
WindBorne
 | 
October 20, 2025

UA 1093

By

Read the article

here.

On Thursday, 16 October, Foreign Object Debris (FOD) struck the
windshield of UA1093, a 737 MAX aircraft, at approximately 36,000 ft.
WindBorne began investigating this incident at 11pm on Sunday, 19
October, and we believe that the FOD was likely a WindBorne balloon.

At 6am PT Monday morning, we sent our preliminary investigation to
both the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA), and are working with both
organizations to further investigate this incident. We are grateful
that to our knowledge there were no serious injuries and no loss of
pressurization. The flight, which was en route from Denver to Los
Angeles, diverted to Salt Lake City. The plane itself later flew to
Chicago.

WindBorne has conducted more than 4,000 launches. We have been
coordinating with the FAA for the entire history of the company and
file NOTAMs (aviation alerts) for every balloon we launch.

The system is designed to be safe in the event of a midair collision.
This is the purpose of the FAA Part 101 and ICAO weight limits. Our
balloon is 2.4 pounds at launch and gets lighter throughout flight.

We are working closely with the FAA on this matter. We immediately
rolled out changes to minimize time spent between 30,000 and 40,000
feet. These changes are already live with immediate effect.
Additionally, we are further accelerating our plans to use live
flight data to autonomously avoid planes, even if the planes are at a
non-standard altitude. We are also actively working on new hardware
designs to further reduce impact force magnitude and concentration.



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WindBorne Systems is based in Palo Alto, Calif. Our technology is
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