China: a plane hit by a UFO?

Originally posted by Zaphod58
As I said in the other thread, most likely hail. If something solid, like a bird or small UAV as some have speculated had hit, it usually results in a tear in the skin, and the pilots usually see it before impact. When the USAir flight landed in the Hudson, they saw the geese a good three seconds before impact, there just wasn't anything they could do. They immediately reported it as a bird strike as well.

I've seen a number of aircraft come home with everything from peeled paint, to dents in the skin from flying through thunderstorms (both with, and without hail). Rain and hail can do a lot of damage to an aircraft at those speeds. And even a large hail stone is not likely to be seen before impact.

edit on 6/6/2013 by Zaphod58 because: (no reason given)

I would agree that an iceball of some sort is a good candidate, and so is the lightning strike idea, possibly a combination of the two but there is not enough detail given there. Anyway this ground video should give a decent idea of what a plane versus a goose, (singularly) could look like with a little license,

reply to post by elevenaugust


In another article , they said it was a superman

It's unclear what struck this Air China plane while it was flying at 8,000 metres (26,000 feet), causing it to return to Chengdu, but we can speculate that it was Superman. It was probably Superman

Shanghaiist.com

It's China, they hit a dragon. It could also have been Godzilla, China has not been on the best terms with Japan lately.

reply to post by elevenaugust


Here is other related Article :

Incident: Air China B757 near Chengdu on Jun 4th 2013, "slightly rearranged radome" at FL260

Aviation Herald

An Air China Boeing 757-200, registration B-2856 performing flight CA-4307 from Chengdu to Guangzhou (China), was climbing through FL260 when a large bang was heard from the nose section of the aircraft and the aircraft performance worsened. The crew stopped the climb and returned to Chengdu for a safe landing with a "slightly rearranged radome".

Post flight examination raises the suspicion that the aircraft may have collided with a foreign object, a bird strike was ruled out however due to lack of blood, feathers or any other bird remains.

Let's be creative. It hit a mini-blackhole traveling through the galaxy, that happened to enter the earth's atmosphere. It was only a glancing blow.

This is a fabulously informative thread about a genuine flight mystery. Attaboys all around and let's follow up. It's my turn to learn from other experts.

A glancing blow on a bird is the most obvious answer here. The dome is at an extreme angle, so it could have hit and bounced leaving no evidence behind. I have, however, seen birds go right through aircraft aluminum, but usually that's in areas that are a little more blunt and not at such a “swept back” angle.

Zaph's comment about the ice is very good, and I would have never thought of it myself. The only issue I have with ice is that it normally is going to be in the tops of a thunderhead, and aircraft will avoid those areas because they can literally bend or tear the airframe. Pan Am used to have an B727 called the “bent bertha”, which you could look down the nose and see the frame had a bow to it. This was the result of flying through the top of a thunderhead. If the pilots where in such a location, they would well have known about it.

Anything more substantial would have most likely ripped right into the dome, which is not much more than a thick piece of carbon fiber reinforced fiberglass. So that doesn't leave much else it could be.

The only other thought that occurs to me is that they didn't hit anything at all...
What I mean is that there was a structural defect in the dome itself, and the dome just collapsed under pressure. The sound of the dome “giving out” (denting in) could very well explain the “thump” that made them think they struck something.

Anyway, interesting mystery for certain.

reply to post by defcon5

The only other thought that occurs to me is that they didn't hit anything at all... What I mean is that there was a structural defect in the dome itself, and the dome just collapsed under pressure. The sound of the dome “giving out” (denting in) could very well explain the “thump” that made them think they struck something

Judging by the scratch marks over the impact zone , I highly doubt it collapsed on its own under pressure

reply to post by CosmicQuest
The “bend” has pulled the underside of the dome over the top. The bottoms of aircraft are not very clean unless the plane was recently polished. Domes are normally covered in pock-marks, bug guts, crap that is splashed up on them from the nose gear, etc...

Its also possible that someone damaged the aircraft during ground handling, bumped the nose with a piece of equipment, and didn't report it for fear of getting fired (hitting an aircraft on the ramp is normally instant termination for a ramp agent). Later when the plane was in flight, the extra drag caused by the damage, plus the weakened structure, and the pressure of the airflow, caused it to catastrophically fail.

reply to post by CosmicQuest

Actually, going back and looking at the other photos, it is higher up on the dome then I realized.
However, the black marks are a clue here I believe. They look strangely like the marks left by the rubber bumpers on ground service equipment.

reply to post by elevenaugust


My first thought was a bird and i think it is 2600 not 26000. I saw a bird because it just dented the nose and you can see what could be blood smearing off the side the dent is on. Def not mid air collusion with another craft.

Guys a bird cant do this much damage

Besides i see black paint.Lets wait a bit for further news.Op is the source of this article legit?Are you chinese or translating?

Nice catch

Originally posted by IMSAM
Guys a bird cant do this much damage

Since when?

Originally posted by defcon5
Zaph's comment about the ice is very good, and I would have never thought of it myself. The only issue I have with ice is that it normally is going to be in the tops of a thunderhead, and aircraft will avoid those areas because they can literally bend or tear the airframe. Pan Am used to have an B727 called the “bent bertha”, which you could look down the nose and see the frame had a bow to it. This was the result of flying through the top of a thunderhead. If the pilots where in such a location, they would well have known about it.

I've had birds come back with ice damage numerous times, without flying into storms. It's like lightning from a thunderstorm, it usually stays inside the storm, but sometimes it gets thrown a good distance, and it's small enough that you can't see it coming to avoid it. Most of the time it's small pieces that's going to damage your paint, and put small dings into the aircraft, but sometimes it's bigger pieces that are going to cause pretty significant damage.

reply to post by smurfy


I would not dispute whether or not fowls of any sort could FLY at that altitude, and would never want to make the argument about whether it "could be" a bird of any sort. Rather, could a bird or "birds" make a freaking dent in an airplane like that?????

reply to post by shell69

could a bird or "birds" make a freaking dent in an airplane like that?????

Yes they could and have ...

sutherlandshire.airleague.com.au...

reply to post by gortex

Stupid bird.
Got no business getting in front of a plane flying 500 miles an hour.

reply to post by Zaphod58




And whence does the black paint come from?A den this big would require a pterodactyl

No 2nd

reply to post by IMSAM


Uhm, so then what created the holes in those pictures I posted? If a dent that big would require a pterodactyl, then a hole that covers the entire nose would require something bigger.

What kind of bird do you think his this plane then?



Small birds do a surprising amount of damage when they're hit at 200 plus miles an hour.

As for the black marks (we don't know they're paint), the paint gets damaged pretty easily on aircraft, especially on the radome which is one of the weakest structures on the plane (it's only fiberglass so the radar can go through it). I've seen planes come back with black marks from simple rain on the nose (which again does an amazing amount of damage at 200+ miles per hour).

Dosent look like a bird to me.Maybe it was an accident at the airport or a well done hoax.Any more sources for this?nice one