Reportedly, the National Transportation Safety Board already sent a Go-Team to investigate the crash Friday of a Virgin Galactic test flight.
NTSB's senior Investigator Lorenda Ward is leading the team as investigator-in-charge. Acting Chairman Christopher A. Hart is accompanying the team and will serve as the principal spokesman during the on-scene phase of the investigation.
According to people involved, Virgin Galactic's partner Scaled Composites conducted a powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo. During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle. The WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft landed safely.
Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic team is cooperating with our partners at Scaled Composites and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as well as local authorities. "We understand that the NTSB arrived in Mojave in order to commence their investigation, which is expected to last several days", the company says.
Mojave Air & Space Port confirmed that one of the two Scaled Composites pilots died during the accident. The other pilot parachuted to the ground and is being treated at a local hospital. "All of us at Virgin Galactic are deeply saddened by today’s events. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of all those affected by this accident", Virgin told reporters.
The CEO of Virgin Galactic, George Whitesides, provided the following statement: "Our primary thoughts at this moment are with the crew and family, and we’re doing everything we can for them now. I’d like to recognize the work of the first responders who we work with in the Antelope Valley for their efforts on behalf of the team. We’re also thinking of the team members that we have at the companies that have been working on this program.
Virgin Galactic comments, "Space is hard and today was a tough day. We are going to be supporting the investigation as we figure out what happened today. We’re going to get through it. The future rests in many ways on hard days like this, but we believe we owe it to the team, that has been working so hard on this endeavor, to understand this and to move forward. And that is what we’ll do.”
While finding the cause of the problem is far from over, some critics in the know suspect that Branson's impatience might have contributed to the crash. Some experts say the progress of the program was "much too slow" for Richard Branson who wanted to space "as soon as possible".
According to some news media reports, Branson is widely seen not just as successful billionaire and entrepreneur - but also as an "ego-centric playboy" who is "more interested in his own promotion than in his projects..."
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