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NTSB: SpaceShipTwo test program did not properly anticipate human error
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
reported, July 28, that it has determined the cause of the
Oct. 31, 2014, in-flight breakup of the composites-intensive
SpaceShipTwo (SS2) during a rocket- powered test flight,
seriously injuring the pilot and killing the co- pilot. Built
by Scaled Composites for Virgin Galactic (both based in
(Mojave, CA, US) to provide passengers short excursions to
the edge of space, SS2 broke up when its feather system,
designed to pivot the tailboom structures upward to slow
the vehicle during atmospheric reentry, and intended to
be unlocked during the boost phase of flight at 1.4 Mach,
was instead unlocked by the copilot at 0.8 Mach. Once
unlocked, the loads imposed on the feather were sufficient
to overcome the feather actuators, allowing the feather to
deploy uncommanded, which resulted in the breakup.
NTSB found that Scaled failed to consider the possibility
that a test pilot could unlock the feather early or that this
single -point human error could cause the feather to deploy
uncommanded, and also failed to ensure that test pilots
adequately understood the risks of unlocking the feather
early, and that the only documented discussion with the
pilots about the loads on the feather as the vehicle transitioned
from subsonic to supersonic flight occurred more
than three years before the accident. Further, the US Federal
Aviation Admin. (FAA), responsible for evaluating Scaled’s
experimental test flight permit applications, granted an
initial permit, renewed it once, then recognized that Scaled’s
hazard analysis did not meet the software and human-error
requirements in FAA experimental permit regulations. The
FAA then waived those hazard analysis requirements based
on mitigations included in Scaled’s experimental permit
application, but subsequently failed to ensure the mitigations
in the waiver were implemented.
Follow this link to the NTSB abstract |
www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Pages/2015_spaceship2_BMG.aspx.
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