40 seconds from air disaster

A Russian satellite may have blazed into New Zealand airspace. Photo / Reuters

An Auckland-bound jetliner came close to being hit by blazing pieces of what is thought to have been a Russian satellite hurtling into New Zealand airspace.

However, Nasa said today it was convinced the flaming objects were not from a satellite and space experts said it could have been a meteor.

Aviation authorities are investigating how flaming wreckage thundered close to the Lan Chile Airlines Airbus A340 flying from Santiago, Chile, on Tuesday night.

The debris was so close to the aircraft that the pilot could hear the roar it made as it broke the sound barrier.

The alarmed Airbus pilot notified Auckland Oceanic Centre after seeing flaming space junk shooting across the sky about five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane at about 10pm.

At the aircraft's cruising speed of 880km/h it was within about 40 seconds of a potential catastrophe.

According to a planespotter who was tuning in to a high-frequency radio broadcast at the time, the pilot "reported that the rumbling noise from the space debris could be heard over the noise of the aircraft".

"He described how he saw a piece of debris lighting up as it re-entered [the earth's atmosphere]. He was a very worried pilot as you would imagine.

"Auckland is talking to [an] Aerolineas Argentinas [pilot] who is travelling [in the] opposite direction at 10 degrees further south asking if they wish to turn back to Auckland. They have elected to carry on at the moment.

"It is not something you come across every day and I am sure the Lan Chile crew will have a tale to tell," the planespotter said.

Nicholas Johnson, orbital debris chief scientist for Nasa's Johnson Space Center said he checked with the Russians and that debris -- an empty Progress resupply ship that had been at the International Space Station -- fired its re-entry rockets a half day after the airliner reported the near-miss.

"Unless someone has their times wrong, there appears to be no correlation," Johnson told the Associated Press news agency.

He said he knew of no other re-entering space junk spotted by global trackers at about that time.

Airways NZ spokesman Ken Mitchell said today a meteor had not been ruled out.

He said: "The information we have been providing to the media has been based on the information we have had to hand and the eyewitness report of the pilot.