I have a question about this from Trip Barber's notice about the recent Continental flight issue: "Both pilots saw it clearly and described it as roughly 6 feet long , white, with triangular/delta fins, not smoking, and passing through a horizontal orientation at that moment (presumably coming to apogee).  The pilots were, naturally, extremely alarmed and thought they were going to strike it."

 

I have heard that commercial airplanes travel at several hundred miles per hour.  I have no experience with an encounter at these relative speeds (several hundreds of miles per hour), but I wonder if a surprise encounter at that closing speed on such a small object would allow an opportunity for such a detailed observation.  Is anyone able to offer information on this?
 

Jim Parker

 

"Everything on the internet is true."