Mystery object which injured pilot and forced plane to make emergency landing revealed

United Airlines flight 1093 was en route from Denver to Los Angeles on October 16 when the incident occurred.

As a result, the plane was diverted to Salt Lake City.

Photos showed the pilot's arm covered in bloody scratches as well as part of the control panel and the windscreen smashed.

In a statement the airline said: "On Thursday, United flight 1093 safely landed in Salt Lake City to address damage to its multilayered windshield.

"We arranged for another aircraft to take customers to Los Angeles later that day, and our maintenance team is working to return the aircraft to service."

The Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft had 134 passengers and six crew members on board when it hit an object which cracked the windscreen.

Passenger Heather Ramsey told FOX 11: "When the pilot made his initial emergency broadcast, he told us that a window in the cockpit had shattered, and that was the exact terminology that he used.

"And then the pilot came over the intercom and said, 'Unfortunately, we have some bad news. The aircraft has collided with an object'.

"He didn't specify what the object was. But then he informed us that we would have to make an emergency landing in Salt Lake City."

It was originally thought that the plane may have hit some form of space debris, however it is now thought the object was a weather balloon.

The California-based company Windborne Systems which designs and builds smart weather balloons said it believes one of its devices may have been involved in the incident.

A statement from the company said: "On Thursday October 16, Foreign Object Debris (FOD) stuck the windshield of UA1093, a 737 MAX aircraft, at approximately 36,000 feet.

"WindBorne began investigating this incident on Sunday October 19 and we believe that the FOD was likely a Windborne balloon."

It continued: "We are grateful that to our knowledge there were no serious injuries and no loss of pressurisation."

The company confirmed it was working alongside the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and had sent their preliminary investigation to the organisations on Monday morning.

Officials from Windborne said thousands of balloon launches have been conducted by the company which has coordinated with the FAA "for the entire history of the company".

They also claimed their systems are specially designed in order to be safe if a midair collision does take place.

The company said: "We are working closely with the FAA on this matter. We immediately rolled out changes to minimise time spent between 30,000 and 40,000 feet.

"These changes are already live with immediate effect. Additionally, we are further accelerating our plans to use live flight data to autonomously avoid planes, even if the planes are at a non-standard altitude.

"We are also actively working on new hardware designs to further reduce impact force magnitude and concentration."

The investigation into the incident is ongoing.