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Detecting meteroids?
Years ago, I flew from Norway to Belgium when we were diverted to the nearest airport for repairs. It turned out that something made a hole in the right-hand window of the cockpit. As we waited for the repairs, I saw the damaged window being taken away and I asked a pilot what caused it. "Probably some space dust, tiny meteroid, the only thing that can be encountered at a cruise altitude of 35,000 feet."
Now I am thinking of the Malaysian B-777 that disappeared. Could it be caused by a larger meteorid? I know that NASA has a meteroid watch program. But how big a meteorid has to be, to be detected? Could it be big enough to destroy the cockpit of the aircraft without being detected by e.g. infrared satellite picture or land-based radar detection?
@Petrusclavus: I am a pilot myself and I own a Kitfox aircraft. The beacon you are talking about is an ELT that sends a signal to the COSPAR-SARSAT satellites when a) hand-triggered or b) sustain a substential shock. I have an ELT in my little aircraft since it is compulsory here in Norway. But I think a meteroid could hit the cockpit without giving the needed stress to activate the ELT. I don't know where it is placed in a B-777, perhaps in the tail. In my plane, it is placed right behind the seats.
2 Answers
- ?Lv 77 years agoFavorite Answer
Meteor strikes on aircraft have happened - they are startlingly rare. If there had been such an impact then the modern beacons would have triggered, the lifejackets would have scattered and their beacons activated. Nice concept but not valid.
Anything that knocks an aircraft out of the sky before any crew can scream has got to be a pretty sharp shock.
Personally I guess people acted, took it down below radar, coherent crash or land.
