SpaceShipTwo crash investigation may
take up to a year
NTSB:
SpaceShipTwo lever moved early
A lock-unlock lever
on the doomed Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo was moved earlier than it should
have been, the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday night.
But the agency's acting chairman stressed it was unclear whether
pilot error, mechanical problems or a host of other possibilities caused the
spacecraft to disintegrate in the air.
SpaceShipTwo has 'anomaly' in test
flight
"We are still a long way from finding a cause. We are months
and months away," NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher Hart said.
And despite a debris field spanning 5 miles, investigators have
found almost all the parts of the spacecraft needed for the investigation, Hart
said.
The accident killed co-pilot Michael Tyner Alsbury, 39. A memorial
fund has been set up for him.
Co-pilot alert and talking
The surviving co-pilot is "alert" and speaking, the
company that partnered with Virgin on the test flight program said Sunday.
"Peter Siebold, the director of flight operations at Scaled
Composites, was piloting SpaceShipTwo. He is alert and talking with his family
and doctors," the company said in a statement.
"We remain focused on supporting the families of the two
pilots and all of our employees, as well as the agencies investigating the
accident."
NTSB investigators have yet to interview Siebold.
"We have not because doctors did not recommend we do an
interview at this stage," Hart said.
Inflight breakup?
SpaceShipTwo disintegrated Friday, just two minutes after the
space plane separated from the jet-powered aircraft that carried it aloft.
At the time, it was about 45,000 feet above, and about 20 miles
northeast, of Mojave, California.
While the NTSB hasn't determined what broke the test aircraft
apart, "when wreckage is dispersed like that, it indicates the likelihood
of in-flight breakup," Hart said.
A team of 13 to 15 investigators from the National Transportation
Safety Board will be on site in the Mojave Desert for about a week. But
analyzing the data from the test aircraft will take much longer.
'We're going to learn'
Virgin Group founder Richard Branson said Sunday he didn't
personally know Alsbury, but had the privilege of knowing Siebold.
"Mike was a dear friend and inspiring colleague to the many,
many friends he left behind. My heart goes out to his parents, his wife and
children, his sister and the rest of his family and friends," he said
about Alsbury.
He wished Siebold a speedy recovery.
On Saturday, Branson said that the company is "determined to
find out what went wrong."
When asked about the future of Virgin Galactic, Branson said the
company's goal is still putting people safely into space.
"I think millions of people in the world would love one day
to have the chance to go to space, and this is the start of a long program,"
he said.
Years of flight experience
The two test pilots had both had a great deal of flight
experience.
Alsbury worked at Scaled Composites and logged more than 1,600
hours as test pilot and test engineer in Scaled aircraft.
Siebold had worked for Scaled Composites since 1996 and had 17
years and more than 2,000 hours of flight experience.
Both had degrees in aeronautical engineering from California
Polytechnic State University.
As for the program itself, SpaceShip Two had flown 55 times, 35
times on its own, Branson said in a statement. White Knight Two, the
jet-powered "mothership" charged with transporting SpaceShip Two to
altitude, has flown 173 times, Branson said.
"We've always known that the road to space is extremely
difficult -- and that every new transportation system has to deal with bad days
early in their history," Branson said. "Space is hard -- but worth
it. We will persevere and move forward together."
Future of the program
For years, Virgin Galactic has planned to sell trips in which
SpaceShip Two would transport passengers about 62 miles above Earth -- the
beginning of outer space -- and let them experience a few minutes of
weightlessness before returning to the ground.
It's unclear what the failure of the space plane will mean for the
program. Virgin Galactic planned to send paying customers on SpaceShip Two as
early as next year.
The company released a statement late Sunday.
"At Virgin Galactic, we are dedicated to opening the space
frontier, while keeping safety as our 'North Star'. This has guided every
decision we have made over the past decade, and any suggestion to the contrary
is categorically untrue," it said.
"Now is not the time for speculation. Now is the time to
focus on all those affected by this tragic accident and to work with the
experts at the NTSB, to get to the bottom of what happened on that tragic day,
and to learn from it so that we can move forward safely with this important
mission."
Virgin has sold more than 700 tickets, each costing more than
$250,000, for future flights. Several celebrities have already signed up,
including Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, Leonardo DiCaprio and Stephen Hawking.
Source: CNN.com
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