Now I'm just imagining the object hitting the window, the pilot looking down at his arm injury from the bowl of petunias that hit the plane yesterday, and thinking "not again."

ISWYDT. :-)

That pilot would not be having a whale of a time, that's for sure.

Why would there be a picture of the arm circulating if the injuries are from another incident? I won’t dispute your analysis of the photo because I don’t know anything about the subject

Edit: I take that back. Another photo has emerged showing more blood.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatLookedExpensive/comments/1oalnx...

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None of the articles I have seen have said the lacerations are a result of the "space debris" incident. The linked article simply says "One of the photos shows a pilot’s arm peppered with small cuts and scratches", and which is not the same as "the pilot said the shattering glass caused the cuts you see on his arm."

I am saying it is possible that the pilot had a previous, unrelated injury, and it just so happened to be captured in the picture of the windshield. That picture is going viral because it was likely one of the first pics from the incident, but it does not mean his injuries are necessarily from the incident. I was only pointing this out based on the way the blood looked more dried up and treated/healing.

The pilot probably took the photograph after landing. There's no time to take selfies during an emergency!

Not saying it's what's happened here, but it's very easy for someone to post any image and claim it's from the same incident. Get the post enough attention and if it seems genuine enough other people will share and repost without fact checking, then people will share and reposts the reposts, and so on.

Professional outlets do this all the time, and they're _paid_ not to mess this up. Copying other outlet's bad reporting without fact checking, then once a couple more "corroborating" articles come up (or one from a reputable outlet) and it'll just be repeated as fact, they can't all be wrong right?

Making sure the plane continues to fly would be the top priority for a pilot. Second to that, formulating an emergency plan and communicating with air traffic control. Taking pictures of you wounds should be extremely far down the list

"Aviate. Communicate. Navigate." is so passé.

Now it's "Digitize. Publicize. Monetize."