ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 170756
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| Date: | Friday 31 October 2014 |
| Time: | 10:07 |
| Type: | Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo |
| Owner/operator: | Scaled Composites LLC |
| Registration: | N339SS |
| MSN: | 01 |
| Year of manufacture: | 2010 |
| Total airframe hrs: | 6 hours |
| Engine model: | Scaled Composites RM2-20A001 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 2 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Category: | Accident |
| Location: | east of Mojave, CA -
 United States of America
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Test |
| Departure airport: | Mojave, CA (MHV) |
| Mojave, CA (MHV) | |
| Investigating agency: | NTSB |
| Confidence Rating: |  Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
On October 31, 2014, at 1007:32 Pacific daylight time, the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) reusable suborbital rocket, N339SS, operated by Scaled Composites LLC (Scaled), broke up into multiple pieces during a rocket-powered test flight and impacted terrain over a 5-mile area near Koehn Dry Lake, California. The pilot received serious injuries, and the copilot received fatal injuries. SS2 was destroyed, and no one on the ground was injured as a result of the falling debris. SS2 had been released from its launch vehicle, WhiteKnightTwo (WK2), N348MS, about 13 seconds before the structural breakup. Scaled was operating SS2 under an experimental permit issued by the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) according to the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 437.
Probable Cause: Scaled Composites' failure to consider and protect against the possibility that a single human error could result in a catastrophic hazard to the SpaceShipTwo vehicle. This failure set the stage for the copilot's premature unlocking of the feather system as a result of time pressure and vibration and loads that he had not recently experienced, which led to uncommanded feather extension and the subsequent aerodynamic overload and in-flight breakup of the vehicle.
Accident investigation:
 |
|
Sources:
NTSB
Location
Media:
Photo of #SpaceShipTwo debris from @ABC23News\' helicopter. Live stream here: http://t.co/JOhYYG4CUa pic.twitter.com/cKkskNUImM
— Cory Bergman (@corybe) October 31, 2014Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 31-Oct-2014 18:30 | harro | Added |
| 31-Oct-2014 18:47 | harro | Updated [Registration, Cn, Total occupants, Embed code, Plane category] |
| 31-Oct-2014 18:56 | harro | Updated [Operator, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Embed code, Damage, Narrative] |
| 31-Oct-2014 19:03 | harro | Updated [Source] |
| 31-Oct-2014 19:09 | harro | Updated [Total fatalities, Other fatalities, Narrative] |
| 31-Oct-2014 21:28 | harro | Updated [Time, Source, Narrative] |
| 01-Nov-2014 12:17 | Aerossurance | Updated [Source, Narrative, Plane category] |
| 12-Nov-2014 17:01 | Aerossurance | Updated [Source, Narrative] |
| 29-Jul-2015 16:38 | Iceman29 | Updated [Embed code, Narrative] |
| 05-Aug-2015 12:00 | Iceman29 | Updated [Embed code] |
| 21-Dec-2016 19:28 | ASN Update Bot | Updated [Time, Damage, Category, Investigating agency] |
| 30-Nov-2017 19:28 | ASN Update Bot | Updated [Cn, Operator, Other fatalities, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Embed code, Narrative, Plane category] |
| 16-Feb-2020 15:35 | harro | Updated [Other fatalities, Embed code, Narrative, Accident report, ] |
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