Pilot Debrief

SCALED COMPOSITES 339 near Koehn Dry Lake, CA — 2014-10-31

Final reportDCA15MA019
Sign in to save
Date
2014-10-31
Location
Koehn Dry Lake, CA, USA
Aircraft
SCALED COMPOSITES 339
Registration
N339SS
Category
RCKT
Highest injury
Fatal
Fatalities
1

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.

NTSB narrative

NTSB investigators traveled in support of this investigation and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aerospace accident report. The Safety Board's full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AccidentReports.aspx. The Aerospace Accident Report number is NTSB/AAR-15/02. 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.

NTSB coding

Evidence available

  • Video
  • Photos
  • 103 docket documents
View NTSB final reportView NTSB docket

Docket documentsshowing 50 of 103

Related mishaps