Gig 601XL Builder wrote:

The pilot of a Lan Chile Airbus A340, which was travelling between Santiago,
Chile, and Auckland, New Zealand, notified air traffic controllers at
Auckland Oceanic Centre after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the
sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane about 10pm
last night.

How does he know how far away it was? Does the Airbus have radar that
would measure the distance? It would be impossible to tell visually.