Meteorite, not space junk, blamed for airliner's near miss

Mar 29, 2007, 22:31 GMT

Wellington - Experts believe a meteorite, not space junk, was more likely the cause of flaming debris that narrowly missed a Lan Chile airliner over the South Pacific this week, according to news reports Friday.

New Zealand's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) launched an inquiry into the incident after debris fell close to the Airbus A-340, carrying up to 300 people from Santiago to Auckland Tuesday night.

A Russian satellite falling out of orbit was originally blamed for the incident in which the jet was said to be only 40 seconds away from disaster.

'Space agencies track satellites, and if they're coming down they can predict when and where reasonably accurately,' CAA spokesman Bill Sommer told the New Zealand Herald. 'Airlines will then have that information and make sure they don't fly through those areas.'

He said the system was reliable, adding, 'If I was a betting person, I would bet on a meteorite rather than space debris.'

Captain Steven Anderson, assistant secretary of the Australian and International Pilots' Association, told the paper most space debris would have burned up by the time it reached an airplane's cruising altitude of about 10,668 metres.

'I would imagine that a satellite, by the time it reached the aircraft, would have been completely destroyed,' he said.

The flight landed safely at Auckland Airport early Wednesday. The CAA inquiry is likely to take a month.