Scaled Composites 339 N339SS

Summary

On 31 October 2014 at about 17:07 local time, a Scaled Composites 339 registered N339SS, operated by Scaled Composites LLC, was involved in an accident near Koehn Dry Lake, California, United States. 2 people were on board and one died, one was seriously injured. The aircraft was destroyed. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

31 October 2014 at 17:07

Classification

Accident

Location

Koehn Dry Lake, California, United States

Coordinates

35.3264, -117.9447

Aircraft

Scaled Composites 339

Registration

N339SS

Year built

2010

Engines

1

Operator

Scaled Composites LLC

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Mojave → Mojave

Aircraft damage

Destroyed

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

DCA15MA019

1 person died.

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.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full 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.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.