This is a disturbing incident...

I saw this on the news tonight, and on that broadcast they actually said the bullet had come from outside and above the airplane.
 
It's been known to happen before to US registered planes, a number of times actually. But, the incidents I know about have occurred in Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala. I would imagine it's happened in Columbia, and other places.
 
At work we have a small box full of bullets that have come down on the ramp, hangars, and even peoples' planes. Result of the airport surrounded by third-world neighborhoods.
 
It could have originated over a mile away. The exact same thing happend at my home a couple of years ago. A .45 FMJ slug came down through my metal roof and landed on my kitchen floor. The deputies told me that another unit had been dispatched to a "shots fired" call about a mile and a half away, but the only thing found was a small group of matching .45 casings on the ground. So when someone says a bullet doesn't come back down with deadly force, give them my name and I'll show them the hole in the top of my house!
 
Based on what was said here, I would have to guess that it was fired while the plane was taxiing from somewhere high up. Rounds that go skyward then return wouldn't have the power to pierce the skin and I doubt the plane was in a sharp bank near the ground. Wonder how long it was there. And it depends what was meant by 'above'. All in all, no good.
 
This is more common than you might think - I recall an interesting murder case where a young girl was killed while asleep at home, by a bullet fired a kilometre away up into the air.
The forensic guys were able to figure the trajectory and got the gun.

It may prove more difficult with a moving target like a plane.
(And of course, you could probably heft a rock and rupture an aircraft skin - they are made light on purpose, a falling slug would go straight through)

I always shake my head when I see the triumphant yahoos in some petty war popping off their automatic weapons into the air...
 
There are incidents where people have recklessly fired level or elevated fire as well as shooting accidents where projectiles have come down and injured or killed people. Two incidents come to mind. One was at Carowinds Amusement Park back in 1987 when a child was hit and killed by a rifle round that went stray from a full berm rifle range nearly a mile away(a case of negligence) and the other was at RDU airport in 1986 when a hunter in a wooded area a few miles outside RDU deliberately fired on an American Airlines 737 hitting the plane and wounding 1 passenger. He was later caught and confessed to intentionally shooting at the plane.
 
It seems as I get older that the world is becoming less and less a friendly place to be. I used to get angry, but now I find myself just wearily shaking my head. They've broken me.

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

Who knows that line?
 
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