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| Crashed Virgin Spacecraft 'Ignored' |
| Crashed Virgin Spacecraft 'Ignored' Space Safety Warnings: Expert
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| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
, 3-November-2014
9:51:25 AM |
| Virgin Galactic "ignored" repeated warnings in the years leading up to the deadly crash of its spacecraft in California, a rocket science safety expert said on Sunday, as investigators hunted for clues to the accident.
After a second full day of investigation, the acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board or NTSB told reporters that a lock-unlock lever on the spaceship had been moved prematurely, but emphasized that the cause of the crash was still unknown.
Carolynne Campbell, a rocket propulsion expert with the Netherlands-based International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety, said she could not speculate on the cause of Friday's crash without "all the data."
However, she said multiple warnings about the spacecraft's motor and the fuel used to power it had been issued to Virgin since 2007, when three engineers died while testing a rocket on the ground.
"Based on the work we've done, including me writing a paper on the handling of nitrous oxide, we were concerned about what was going on at Virgin Galactic," she told AFP.
"I sent copies of the paper to various people at Virgin Galactic in 2009, and they were ignored."
Ms Campbell said she outlined concerns to Virgin Galactic in a subsequent telephone conversation, but her warning again went unheeded.
"I warned them that the rocket motor was potentially dangerous," she said.
Ms Campbell's warnings related to nitrous oxide, reportedly used as a fuel component in the doomed craft along with a new substance derived from nylon plastic grains.
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