A team of about 15 investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NHTSB) began its inquiry on Saturday into the crash of a Virgin Galactic space plane on Friday in the Mojave Desert that killed the co-pilot and severely injured the pilot.
At a news conference on Saturday evening at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, Christopher A Hart, the acting chairman of the board, said the path of debris was five miles long.
"When the wreckage is dispersed like that, that indicates the likelihood of in-flight breakup," he said.
Richard Branson, the billionaire entrepreneur who started Virgin Galactic with the goal of taking tourists on short flights into space, arrived at Mojave on Saturday.
"We are determined to find out what went wrong," Branson said during a news conference at the spaceport on Saturday morning.
Scaled Composites, the company that designed and built SpaceShipTwo, identified the crew member who died as Michael Alsbury, 39, the co-pilot on the flight.
The pilot, who survived by parachuting from the doomed craft, is Peter Siebold, 43. "He is alert and talking with his family and doctors," Scaled Composites said in a news release Saturday.
During the test Friday morning, SpaceShipTwo was lifted by a carrier airplane, WhiteKnightTwo, to an altitude of about 45,000 feet before being released. Soon after the space plane's motor ignited, something went wrong. The plane fell to the ground in pieces about 20 miles northeast of Mojave. This was the first flight test of SpaceShipTwo using a redesigned rocket motor that used a fuel that was plastic-based instead of rubber-based.
The plane was flying southwest when it broke up, Hart said, and investigators found parts of the craft's tail farthest to the northeast. The next parts found along the flight path were the main fuselage, the cockpit, and at the southwest end of the debris field, the rocket motor.
Hart said there were six cameras on SpaceShipTwo, but he did not know how many had been recovered. There were also three cameras on WhiteKnightTwo, and other aircraft following the space plane also collected video and radar data. The investigators also have access to extensive telemetry data and images from a long-range camera tracking the flight from Edwards Air Force Base.
"There were quite a few sources we have that aren't normally available to us on accident investigations," Hart said. He added that investigators would probably spend four to seven days at the site collecting information.
A final report on the accident would take about a year, he said.
More than 700 people, including celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Tom Hanks and Katy Perry, have reserved seats with Virgin Galactic. The price of a ticket is $250,000.
"We do understand the risks involved, and we are not going to push on blindly," Branson said. "To do so would be an insult to all those affected by this tragedy. We're going to learn from what went wrong, discover how we can improve safety and performance, and then move forward together."
"Of course, anyone who ever wants a refund will get a refund," Branson said.
Branson said on Friday one new customer signed up for a flight after news of the crash, to show support for the company.
He said the company had not spent any of the $80 million it has collected in deposits. Instead, the money "gave us the confidence to do the program, because these people were so committed," Branson said.
This is the second time tragedy has struck the spaceport in connection with Scaled Composites; in July 2007, three people died when a rocket system test went awry.
The start of commercial flights, already years later than Branson had desired, will be delayed again; in September, he expressed hope that flights would begin next spring. A second space plane is under construction.
Virgin Galactic faces a difficult decision about the motor to power the next SpaceShipTwo. Although the investigation has just begun, the new motor is an obvious suspect as the cause of the accident. The company could stick with a design that may have already destroyed one craft. Or it could go back to a design that successfully powered three flights, but that caused vibration problems and may not provide enough thrust to propel the space plane to the 62-mile-high altitude that is generally considered the edge of space - there, passengers would experience a few moments of weightlessness.
The manufacturer of the earlier motor, Sierra Nevada Corporation, said in a statement on Friday that it had no involvement with the new SpaceShipTwo motor, which it said was developed internally at Virgin Galactic.
A third option would be to switch to a new engine design, a prospect that could take years of development and testing. That uncertainty, of course, makes for a longer wait for the company's customers, some of whom may now be wondering if they still want to spend $250,000 on a ride that could be fatal.
When asked about Virgin Galactic's future, Branson paused before finally answering, "We would love to finish what we started some years ago." He added, "In the early days of aviation, there were incidents, and then aviation became very safe."
At the end of the news conference, a reporter asked Branson if he still planned to be a passenger on the first operational flight. He gave a quick nod yes.
©2014 The New York Times News Service
At a news conference on Saturday evening at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, Christopher A Hart, the acting chairman of the board, said the path of debris was five miles long.
"When the wreckage is dispersed like that, that indicates the likelihood of in-flight breakup," he said.
Richard Branson, the billionaire entrepreneur who started Virgin Galactic with the goal of taking tourists on short flights into space, arrived at Mojave on Saturday.
"We are determined to find out what went wrong," Branson said during a news conference at the spaceport on Saturday morning.
Scaled Composites, the company that designed and built SpaceShipTwo, identified the crew member who died as Michael Alsbury, 39, the co-pilot on the flight.
The pilot, who survived by parachuting from the doomed craft, is Peter Siebold, 43. "He is alert and talking with his family and doctors," Scaled Composites said in a news release Saturday.
During the test Friday morning, SpaceShipTwo was lifted by a carrier airplane, WhiteKnightTwo, to an altitude of about 45,000 feet before being released. Soon after the space plane's motor ignited, something went wrong. The plane fell to the ground in pieces about 20 miles northeast of Mojave. This was the first flight test of SpaceShipTwo using a redesigned rocket motor that used a fuel that was plastic-based instead of rubber-based.
The plane was flying southwest when it broke up, Hart said, and investigators found parts of the craft's tail farthest to the northeast. The next parts found along the flight path were the main fuselage, the cockpit, and at the southwest end of the debris field, the rocket motor.
Hart said there were six cameras on SpaceShipTwo, but he did not know how many had been recovered. There were also three cameras on WhiteKnightTwo, and other aircraft following the space plane also collected video and radar data. The investigators also have access to extensive telemetry data and images from a long-range camera tracking the flight from Edwards Air Force Base.
"There were quite a few sources we have that aren't normally available to us on accident investigations," Hart said. He added that investigators would probably spend four to seven days at the site collecting information.
A final report on the accident would take about a year, he said.
More than 700 people, including celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Tom Hanks and Katy Perry, have reserved seats with Virgin Galactic. The price of a ticket is $250,000.
"We do understand the risks involved, and we are not going to push on blindly," Branson said. "To do so would be an insult to all those affected by this tragedy. We're going to learn from what went wrong, discover how we can improve safety and performance, and then move forward together."
"Of course, anyone who ever wants a refund will get a refund," Branson said.
Branson said on Friday one new customer signed up for a flight after news of the crash, to show support for the company.
He said the company had not spent any of the $80 million it has collected in deposits. Instead, the money "gave us the confidence to do the program, because these people were so committed," Branson said.
This is the second time tragedy has struck the spaceport in connection with Scaled Composites; in July 2007, three people died when a rocket system test went awry.
The start of commercial flights, already years later than Branson had desired, will be delayed again; in September, he expressed hope that flights would begin next spring. A second space plane is under construction.
Virgin Galactic faces a difficult decision about the motor to power the next SpaceShipTwo. Although the investigation has just begun, the new motor is an obvious suspect as the cause of the accident. The company could stick with a design that may have already destroyed one craft. Or it could go back to a design that successfully powered three flights, but that caused vibration problems and may not provide enough thrust to propel the space plane to the 62-mile-high altitude that is generally considered the edge of space - there, passengers would experience a few moments of weightlessness.
The manufacturer of the earlier motor, Sierra Nevada Corporation, said in a statement on Friday that it had no involvement with the new SpaceShipTwo motor, which it said was developed internally at Virgin Galactic.
A third option would be to switch to a new engine design, a prospect that could take years of development and testing. That uncertainty, of course, makes for a longer wait for the company's customers, some of whom may now be wondering if they still want to spend $250,000 on a ride that could be fatal.
When asked about Virgin Galactic's future, Branson paused before finally answering, "We would love to finish what we started some years ago." He added, "In the early days of aviation, there were incidents, and then aviation became very safe."
At the end of the news conference, a reporter asked Branson if he still planned to be a passenger on the first operational flight. He gave a quick nod yes.
©2014 The New York Times News Service