Tuesday, July 28, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has ruled the cause of a commercial spacecraft's crash last year as human error. One of the craft's pilots have allegedly unlocked the breaking system of the vehicle ahead of time. This has eventually led to the crash of the spacecraft on the Mojave desert, according to a report on The Australian.
"The assumption was these highly trained test pilots would not make mistakes in those areas, but truth be told, humans are humans. And even the best-trained human on their best day can make mistakes," Christopher Hart, NTSB chairman, said.
"Scaled did not consider that a pilot would induce that kind of failure," head investigator Lorenda Ward similarly ruled.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has also been blamed for the incident. Allegations said that the FAA failed to effectively oversee the conditions surrounding the flight. The administration was supposedly unable to determine whether Virgin Galactic's partner, Space Composites, should have been allowed to have a test flight. Scaled Composites has built the aircraft. The company, for its part, was blamed for the vehicle's inability to protect itself and its passengers from the possibility of human error.
Hart said he did not believe that Scaled Composites has done anything to intentionally compromise the safety of the vehicle and its pilots. The NTSB also pointed out that Scales has given its pilots poor training. One pilot, Michael Alsbury, who was experienced in the field, died. He was the one who prematurely unlocked the braking system. His partner was injured but managed to survive.
Scaled Composites stated that it will integrate what it has learned from the incident to better the safety features of its spacecrafts and also to improve training for its pilots, according to an ABC report.
