Space Debris Narrowly Misses Airliner

An anonymous reader writes "An airliner jet traveling from Chile to New Zealand early today was in for an interesting ride. Flaming space debris — the remains of a Russian satellite — came hurtling back to Earth not far from a commercial jet on its way to Auckland, New Zealand. Here's further justification for the growing concern of the increasing amounts of space garbage orbiting our planet. From the article: 'The pilot of a Lan Chile Airbus A340 ... notified air traffic controllers at Auckland Oceanic Centre after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane...'"

Comments

Chili? Russion?

[SouperMike]

An airliner jet traveling from Chili to New Zealand early today were in for an interesting ride. Flaming space debris -- the remains of a Russion satellite -- came hurtling back to Earth not far from commercial jet on their way to Auckland, New Zealand.

Chili?

Russion?

I hate it when my spicy peppers serve as runways.... editors, come on. Are you kidding me?

Re:Behind?

[Rob T Firefly]

It's harder when you have to roll down the window with that little crank.

OK then, how about this?

[Ericular]

The debris came within .0000000538 AU of the aircraft.