A Palo Alto startup that makes weather balloons admits it was “likely” their balloon that struck a United Airlines flight this past Thursday, cracking the windshield, injuring a pilot and forcing an emergency landing.

It made some news last week when a United Airlines flight from Denver to LA had to make an emergency landing because something crashed into and broke part of its windshield. Follow-up reporting from KTVU points out that there were 134 passengers and six crew members on board, and that one of the pilots had his arm pretty badly injured and bloodied up. Some pictures from the aftermath can be seen below.  

There is follow-up reporting from KTVU because this story is now blowing up, and not a good way for one Bay Area startup. The Chronicle reports that the Palo Alto-based company WindBorne Systems, which builds “smart” weather balloons, has admitted it was “likely” one of their weather balloons that hit the plane’s windshield.  

“On Thursday, 16 October, Foreign Object Debris (FOD) struck the windshield of UA1093, a 737 MAX aircraft, at approximately 36,000 ft,” the company said in a Monday blog post. “WindBorne began investigating this incident at 11pm on Sunday, 19 October, and we believe that the FOD was likely a WindBorne balloon.”

Above we see an example of what one of WindBorne Systems’ balloons look like. The company has launched more than 4,000 balloons to assess weather data.

“This is an extraordinary situation,” aviation expert John Nance told ABC News. “At 36,000 feet, you don’t expect a bird or drone — so a weather balloon is one of the few things that could have the mass to cause such damage.”

The Chronicle connects some dots and wonders if this may be related to Trump administration cuts to the National Weather Service, which is now launching fewer of its own weather balloons. WindBorne Systems is one of the private companies launching their own balloons to pick up the slack.

WindBorne Systems also says in their blog post that they "immediately rolled out changes to minimize time spent between 30,000 and 40,000 feet,” and that they are “further accelerating our plans to use live flight data to autonomously avoid planes, even if the planes are at a non-standard altitude.”

Related: San Mateo Company Claims They’ve Got a ‘True Flying Car,’ Taking Pre-Orders Now [SFist]

Image: WindBorne Systems