NTSB Reviews SpaceShipTwo Crash
The National Transportation Safety Board has determined that Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crashed after the vehicle’s tail stabilizers deployed prematurely. The crash killed co-pilot Michael Asbury and injured pilot Peter Siebold on Friday, October 31, in the Mojave Desert shortly after the craft was released from its carrier plane.
Speaking at a press conference on November 2 (see the video), NTSB Chair Christopher Hart said everything was still preliminary. “I would like to emphasize that what I’m about to say is a statement of fact, and not a statement of cause.”
With this being a test flight, there were several telemetry and data recorders in operation, so the NTSB has quite a bit of data through which to search for the exact sequence of events. But the data shows that the feathering system, which moves the twin tails into a new position to stabilize the craft after reaching apogee, prematurely deployed. The cockpit camera shows pilot Asbury unlocking the system upon reaching Mach 1.0, but not deploying the feathering system. Shortly after being unlocked, the tail stabilizers began moving into their feather positions.
Early speculation was that the explosion was related to a new fuel mix, but Scaled Composites president Kevin Mickey said the engine had been tested “many times” on the ground before the test flight.
Hart said the wreckage is being moved into a hangar, and that recovery teams had retrieved the fuel tanks, oxidizer tanks, and the engine. All showed no signs of burn-through or breach.
Full video follows:
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