As long as the debris has no effect wherever it lands, I agree with you
A lot of flights seem to be diverting to avoid it...
https://bsky.app/profile/flightradar24.com/post/3lfvhpgmqqc2...
Does SpaceX bother with NOTAM for its launches?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOTAM
It seems like the flights should have been planned around it so no diversion would be needed.
My understanding is that there are areas which are noted as being possible debris zones across the flight path, but that aircraft are not specifically told to avoid those areas unless there an actual event to which to respond.
If my understanding is correct, it seems sensible at least in a hand-wavy way: you have a few places where things are more likely to come down either unplanned or planned (immediately around the launch site and at the planned deorbit area), but then you have a wide swath of the world where, in a relatively localized area, you -might- have something come down with some warning that it will (just because the time it takes to get from altitude to where aircraft are). You close the priority areas, but you don't close the less likely areas pro-actively, but only do so reactively, it seems you'd achieve a balance between aircraft safety and air service disruptions.
They do but its not clear to me whether the area where it broke up was actually included in the original NOTAM. The NOTMAR definitely does not according to the graphic shown on the NASASpaceflight stream. They are still live so I can't link a time code but something like -4:56 in this stream as of posting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nM3vGdanpw
Since i couldn't find the time code in the video, i put a map together with both NOTAM and NOTMAR.
map: https://github.com/kla-s/Space/blob/main/Map_NOTMAR_NOTAM_Sp... description: https://github.com/kla-s/Space/tree/main
Lets hope this is the year of Linux desktop and i didn't violate any licenses or made big errors ;)
Actually, this video is a good indication for exactly what transpired:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6hIXB62bUE
It's ATC audio captured during the event.
This video, the map elsewhere in this subthread, and the stream recording give a nicely detailed view into what went down. It seems like everything went like it was supposed to in terms of pre-warning, but based on the video the information didn't make it to pilots with coinciding flight plans until after the fact.
As far as I understand airline pilots have a high level of authority and diverting probably was the right call depending on the lag between seeing it and knowing what it was or if there was a risk of debris reaching them. They wouldn't necessarily know how high it got or what that means for debris.
Yeah... and ATC for a good while didn't have any estimate for time to resolution. So, do you run the airplane's fuel down to a minimal reserve level in hopes that the restrictions might lift... or just call it done and divert?
I think it's an absolutely reasonable choice to just say comfortably divert rather than try to linger in hopes of it not lasting too long and possibly ending up diverting anyway... but on minimums.
Understandable, but an over reaction. Any debris not burning up is falling down after minutes.
Would you bet hundreds of lives and millions of dollars on that?
Yes. Space debris near orbiting speeds doesn't fall straight down, it's simple physics.
If anything planes much further downrange (thousands of km) should be diverted, not immediately under the re-entry point.
The planes diverting were downrange. Also, I doubt they had much information to go off, and were essentially flying blind about where the debris were unless they had a direct line to NORAD.
Do you have a better explanation why they are doing donuts over the pacific at the time of reentry, then were diverted?
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/ABX3133
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N121BZ/history/20250...
I was on r/flightradar24 and someone was listening on ATC and heard that one of the flights declared emergency due to fuel.
Other planes were also caught up in the chaos but SJU was at capacity apparently
The ATC is up on YouTube - I heard it on the vatsim channel. ATC would not let pilots transit the designated danger airspace without declaring an emergency. So they did.
I don't have. Maybe they were indeed diverted because people got scared? Still seems pointless given the distances involved. Most reports are coming from social media / people watching flightradar24, and news media is just picking those up.
There are several, all at the same time, all in the same area, where the debreis was seen.
Why do you think it is pointless?
If I am a pilot and the tower says "debris seen heading east of Bahamas", I probably wont want to keep flying towards that direction.
Yeah, it is probably low risk, but I dont have a super computer or detailed map of the Starship debris field or entry zone.
> donuts over the pacific
Atlantic
It wasn’t at orbital speeds yet.
Over 21000km/h when it broke up, compared to ~28k for stuff orbiting in LEO. Should still go quite far.
Yes, although drag is gonna be… substantially higher like this as well.
Does melting down not reshape metallic particles into ideal droplett parts ?
