Starship Flight 7

Looks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground):

https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF...

https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800

https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115

Moment of the breakup:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/

What a strangely beautiful sight. While I was excited to see ship land, I'm also happy I get to see videos of this!

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...

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...

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/NKS172

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