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| Virgin Galactic spacecraft crash 'due to braking error' | Virgin Galactic spacecraft crash 'due to braking error' |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Investigators say a Virgin Galactic spaceship crash was caused by structural failure after the co-pilot unlocked a braking system early. | Investigators say a Virgin Galactic spaceship crash was caused by structural failure after the co-pilot unlocked a braking system early. |
| The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says resulting aerodynamic forces caused the brakes to actually be deployed, tearing apart the craft. | The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says resulting aerodynamic forces caused the brakes to actually be deployed, tearing apart the craft. |
| The NTSB has been probing what caused the craft to break up over the Mojave Desert in a test flight 10 months ago. | The NTSB has been probing what caused the craft to break up over the Mojave Desert in a test flight 10 months ago. |
| The accident killed co-pilot Michael Alsbury and badly injured the pilot. | The accident killed co-pilot Michael Alsbury and badly injured the pilot. |
| 'Human factors' | |
| The Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space tourism craft was flying a manned test last October when it experienced what the company described at the time as "a serious anomaly". | |
| It had been undergoing a powered test flight over the desert north of Los Angeles. | |
| Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson said after the disaster that he was "shocked and saddened" by the "tragic loss". | |
| NTSB chairman Christopher Hart said on Tuesday that he hoped the investigation would prevent a similar accident recurring, adding that the safety board had learned "with a high degree of certainty the events that resulted in the break-up". | |
| "Many of the safety issues that we will hear about today arose not from the novelty of a space launch test flight, but from human factors that were already known elsewhere in transportation," he added. | |
| Both pilots were employed by Scaled Composites, the company that designed the craft. |