Lan Chile Airliner in Near Miss with Re-Entry Space Junk

A Lan Chile pilot flying between Santiago and Auckland last night got the fright of his life when he heard and saw a piece of space junk fly right past his A340 aircraft. What he heard was obviously the piece of unstreamlined debris moving at supersonic speed. The question being asked by space pundits is how close it would have had to have been for the crew and passengers to clearly hear its passage. The encounter happened about 10 minutes after the airliner had crossed into the Auckland FIR (Flight Information Region). Russian authorities had warned two weeks ago that an old space-craft would be re-entering the earth's atmosphere between 1030am and midday Auckland time. That timing proved to have been quite in error which would have made the re-entry coordinates also in error. It's believed to have been the unmanned Russian Progress 23P that had docked at the International Space station in October 2006 to resupply it with fuel, oxygen and spare parts. The Progress undocked last Tuesday and had been due to do its shooting star act over the Pacific Ocean at 1120L on Wednesday 28 March. The Chilean airliner landed in Auckland at 0355L and the captain filed a report. ATC recordings were also handed over to investigators. The NOTAMS issued to pilots indicated that the space debris would enter the atmosphere at about 08h30 UTC at around 40S 40E. It didn't. Perhaps it is rocket science....
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