Accident Overview
On October 31, 2014, at 1007:32 Pacific daylight time, the Scaled Composites LLC SpaceShipTwo (SS2) suborbital rocket, registration N339SS, broke into multiple pieces while conducting a rocket-powered test flight. The debris impacted terrain over a 5-mile area near Koehn Dry Lake, California. The pilot sustained serious injuries, while the copilot received fatal injuries. SS2 was destroyed. No injuries on the ground resulted from the falling debris.
Sequence of Events
SS2 had been released from its launch vehicle, WhiteKnightTwo (WK2), registration N348MS, approximately 13 seconds before the structural breakup occurred. The flight was being conducted under an experimental permit issued by the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) in accordance with 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 437.
Investigation
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators traveled to support the investigation and utilized data from various sources to prepare an aerospace accident report. The full report is available under report number NTSB/AAR-15/02.