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00:01Fire.
00:02Mission!
00:03Support.
00:04Support.
00:05An aircraft disintegrates over the California desert.
00:09It hits hard when you end up having an accident where you lose a close crew member.
00:14Investigators struggle to find out why.
00:17That's the big question that every pilot has.
00:20How did this happen?
00:22There was a lot of questions in regards to how the motor performed.
00:28Everything started shaking pretty bad.
00:30I couldn't breathe.
00:33The stakes could not be higher.
00:35It's a massive setback.
00:37We need to find out what went wrong.
00:39Release.
00:40Any time you take an object and you push it through space, there's going to be risk.
00:47The future of commercial space travel hangs in the balance.
00:51Speedвид.
00:52Speed, Speed.
00:53Speed, Speed…
00:54Speed.
00:55Speed.
00:56Speedижу…
01:01The Mojave Air and Spaceport in Southern California is the site of some of the world's most advanced aerospace research.
01:31Today, a select group of visitors is getting the rare chance to watch a revolutionary new aircraft soar to incredible heights.
01:40It's called Spaceship Two.
01:51System booting.
01:53The spaceship is designed by American aerospace company Scaled Composites.
02:01Showing green across the board.
02:04There are only two test pilots aboard today's flight.
02:09But the company hopes this unique craft will soon be carrying paying customers to the edge of space and back.
02:17Beginning pre-launch checklist.
02:19Copy that.
02:20The project is the brainchild of multi-billionaire Sir Richard Branson.
02:29Together, we can make space accessible in a way that has only been dreamt of before now.
02:35Three, two, one.
02:39Woo!
02:40He sees a bright future in space tourism, with adventure seekers willing to pay $250,000 for a seat on a 70-mile journey past the gravitational bonds of Earth.
02:53Where it's a thrill ride, you get to experience three to four minutes of weightlessness, you get to float around the cabin.
03:02You get a snapshot of what it's like to be an astronaut.
03:06Hundreds of customers have already booked a flight.
03:08But they won't get their thrill ride until Scaled Composites can prove the technology is safe.
03:17And that's taking much longer than expected.
03:22They're seven years behind schedule.
03:26They really didn't understand just how difficult it was going to be.
03:30By 2014, there may have been a sense of urgency, we'd better get on with this, otherwise we might start losing customers and people will lose their faith in us.
03:38The pressure is on.
03:45The future of the entire program rests on the shoulders of these two test pilots.
03:5143-year-old Peter Sebold is an award-winning engineer.
03:55He's piloted 11 different types of experimental aircraft.
04:00His co-pilot, 39-year-old Mike Allsbury, is also a seasoned test pilot and an aeronautical engineer.
04:07They've spent almost nine months training for this mission.
04:17These guys are test pilots, very, very experienced pilots.
04:20These are the best of the best of the best.
04:22Their rocket-powered spaceship is suspended from a jet-powered plane with a 140-foot wingspan.
04:33The launch plane is called White Knight 2.
04:37Spaceship 2 communications check.
04:40Spaceship 2, White Knight 2 copies.
04:42You're loud and clear.
04:43The pilots of White Knight 2 will take the spaceship up to 46,000 feet.
04:50At that extreme altitude, spaceship 2 will detach from the airplane, fire its rocket motor, and climb almost another 100,000 feet higher to the edge of space.
05:05It will then glide back to Earth.
05:10The big advantage of an air launch is it gets you up into the atmosphere 40,000 feet or more prior to starting out.
05:18And that that's a huge advantage versus having to push your way up there off the ground.
05:23Monitoring today's test is a flight director.
05:30He's in constant communication with a team of flight engineers, as well as with all four pilots.
05:40He has the authority to call off the mission if something goes wrong.
05:44It's like a miniaturized version of the mission control room that you see at Johnson Space Center.
06:09There's a lot of data coming down from that spacecraft, and so they can see the health of the spacecraft and how it's performing at any given time.
06:20Today's mission is the 36th test flight for Spaceship 2, but only its fourth powered flight.
06:28They're just going to go a little bit higher and burn the engine a little bit longer than the blast flight, powered flight 3.
06:33They're testing a new rocket motor that burns an experimental nylon fuel, designed to push the spacecraft to an altitude of 140,000 feet.
06:48Pre-launch checks complete.
06:50Copy.
06:52White Knight 2, Spaceship 2, pre-flight complete.
06:56Copy that.
06:57Base, we are ready.
06:59At 9.20 a.m.
07:01White Knight 2, you are go.
07:05The flight director clears the pilots for takeoff.
07:16White Knight 2 and its spaceship cargo accelerate down the runway.
07:23Takeoff speed is 150 knots.
07:31There's a huge internal pressure you put on yourself as you head into one of these tests.
07:38There's a feeling like, I want to maximize my return on this investment.
07:43I want to give as much data back to the engineers as I can.
07:48From takeoff to landing, the flight will take about an hour.
07:52Captain Seabold will take the control column while co-pilot Allsbury monitors performance and configures the craft for its landing.
08:04How's the pressurization system controller doing?
08:07As they climb towards the launch altitude...
08:11Whoa.
08:12...one of the cockpit's multifunction displays goes dark.
08:16But only for a moment.
08:25There you go.
08:28Base, we just had a, uh, sensor MFD failure moving the lower right small knob.
08:34Base copies.
08:36We're seeing it rebooting on the screen now.
08:40I think that's a first.
08:42At least in the airplane.
08:46All right.
08:4730,000 foot checks.
08:49Ready for that?
08:50Ready.
08:59Back on the ground, the excitement builds.
09:03Spaceflight has always been sexy.
09:05It's always been about boundaries.
09:06It's always been about adventure.
09:08And that's what attracts people to it, I think.
09:12Spaceship two is two minutes from release.
09:16You are clear to arm with pylon release.
09:19I'll call fire.
09:21In the final minutes before launch, the pilots review the critical tasks they're about to perform.
09:29Call pitch up.
09:30Pitch down.
09:32Trim feather unlock 1.4.
09:34Things happen very, very, very quickly.
09:38They do not have the time physically to go and pull out the checklist and read the checklist.
09:43Because these things are happening second after second after second.
09:49Glide trim's good.
09:51Green for release.
09:54The flight director clears spaceship two for launch.
09:57All right.
09:59Okay.
10:00Here we go.
10:02All right.
10:03Stick.
10:05Stick us forward.
10:08Captain Seabold moves the control yoke forward to ensure they'll fly down and away from White Knight 2 after release.
10:19Armed.
10:20Yellow light.
10:20Any time you take an object and you push it at the speeds we're talking about through space and then bring it back, there's going to be risk.
10:36It's almost impossible to make it completely safe.
10:39And five, four, three, two, one, release, release, release.
10:53We release.
10:57Spaceship two detaches from White Knight 2 exactly as planned.
11:04Now comes the true test.
11:06Can this revolutionary craft take the crew to the edge of space and safely back to Earth?
11:17As spaceship two drops from its carry plane.
11:21Fire.
11:22Mike Allsbury arms the experimental rocket motor.
11:25Arm.
11:27Fire.
11:27Fire.
11:3160,000 pounds of thrust propels them towards the speed of sound.
11:38Good light.
11:40Spaceship two, its top speed is close to three Mac.
11:44So three times the speed of sound.
11:45Over 2,000 miles per hour.
11:47Very, very fast.
11:50Yeehaw.
11:50It's a very, very rough ride.
11:54So you think about the worst turbulence you've been in an aircraft liner
11:57and then magnify that by 10.
12:01The main thing they were testing was the longer burn time on the rocket engines.
12:06It was supposed to be a 38-second burn of the engine.
12:15But just 14 seconds after ignition,
12:18one of the flight engineers notices some highly troubling data coming from the spacecraft.
12:28Knock it off.
12:31Abort.
12:32The flight director issues a desperate order for the crew to abort.
12:39But it's too late.
12:48Emergency procedure is now in effect.
12:55Red card 2.
12:59My husband was watching through binoculars.
13:02He said, that doesn't look good.
13:03And then we saw two pieces falling from the sky.
13:07I have some pretty close friends who are out there.
13:11I wondered about them, who was flying, what happened.
13:15And that's the big question that every pilot has when you hear about a mishap.
13:19How did this happen?
13:21Emergency procedure is now in effect.
13:24Red card 2.
13:26Initiating search for the call of light night 2.
13:28Remarkably, Captain Pete Seabold has managed to parachute to safety.
13:40He's injured, but alive.
13:44There's no emergency escape system.
13:47There's no egress capsule.
13:48There's nothing like that.
13:50Basically, there's not much they can do apart from hope that the parachute's over.
13:53That's the risk.
13:54Co-pilot Mike Allsbury is not so lucky.
14:01Trapped in the cockpit during the breakup, he dies in the crash.
14:07Everybody wants to see the goal of commercial space.
14:10They want to see the goal of this new aircraft, this new vehicle being successful.
14:15And it hits hard when you end up having an accident where you lose a close crew member
14:20and someone that you've probably worked with day in and day out throughout the whole program.
14:27Good evening, and we begin this Friday night with the deadly mid-air explosion at 50,000 feet over the Mojave Desert.
14:34And major questions over how this could have happened.
14:36Wreckage is strewn over five miles of desert.
14:46Emergency responders spot Pete Seabold's parachute and rush him to hospital.
14:51It was a heart-wrenching moment.
14:57It's horrendous for the families of the test pilot.
15:00It's a horrible day for Virgin Galactic, for commercial space travel.
15:04It's a massive setback.
15:07We need to find out what went wrong and fix it.
15:09That job now falls to the National Transportation Safety Board.
15:20Investigating space accidents is nothing new for the NTSB.
15:24Okay.
15:27In the wake of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003,
15:32more than 50 NTSB employees helped identify the cause of the breakup.
15:39Working with a commercial space accident as compared to a commercial airline
15:46or a general aviation accident is very similar.
15:50A lot of the engineering principles are the same.
15:53The actual devices that are used are slightly different
15:56because of the environments that they're intended to operate in.
16:00But the basic scientific principles stay the same.
16:04Let's start with the rocket motor.
16:07All right.
16:07The NTSB's Lorenda Ward is the investigator in charge.
16:13She sends her team in search of components
16:16from the spacecraft's newly designed engine.
16:20What we look for is any evidence of an in-flight fire or post-crash fire.
16:26And we didn't really have a lot of fire in itself.
16:29Mike Bauer is an NTSB investigator and systems group chairman.
16:37It's his job to search the wreckage for any sign of an onboard systems failure.
16:43I worked closely with the propulsion engineer,
16:46and we discussed some of the items that could have helped cause the in-flight breakup
16:52that might have been propulsion-related.
16:53Spaceship 2 is powered by a new rocket motor that burns an experimental hybrid fuel,
17:04a combination of nitrous oxide and nylon.
17:07The advanced power plant is more efficient,
17:12pushing the spacecraft to extreme altitudes while burning less fuel.
17:18But the improvements come with a risk.
17:21The new engine is more likely to blow up if the fuel doesn't ignite properly.
17:26Is that what happened in the skies over the Mojave Desert?
17:36We had a list of items that we were concerned with,
17:39that we wanted to take a closer look at.
17:42We would be on our hands and knees going through,
17:46very finely looking for valves, fittings, components
17:50for some of the smaller items that we were looking at,
17:53including some of the data storage units.
17:56I'm not seeing any scorching on the rocket motor.
18:01The team searches for any evidence that the motor blew up in flight.
18:08This is a composite-type vehicle, but it's still painted,
18:11so you would see, like, the blistering in the paint.
18:14You could also see melting of materials, and we did not have that.
18:19It's no explosion or fire.
18:26One of the things that we were able to tell by being on scene
18:29was that the motor was not an issue as to why the vehicle broke up.
18:34Ruling out one possible cause is a step forward for investigators.
18:39But they know they could be facing a very long road ahead
18:45in their search to figure out why this crucial test flight
18:49went so horribly wrong.
18:52The wreckage that now litters California's Mojave Desert
19:04has put the future of commercial space travel in doubt.
19:09The NTSB needs answers.
19:12What happened to Spaceship Two during its short, high-speed flight?
19:19Were there any signs of trouble before the accident?
19:23There was a data warning.
19:33Knock it off!
19:34Can we see the video from the external cameras?
19:46See here?
19:48The tailbone folded in on the aircraft along the hinge of the feather system.
19:52It went into feather mode.
19:58Feather mode refers to the defining feature of Spaceship Two's design.
20:04The craft actually changes shape during flight.
20:09After reaching maximum altitude,
20:12the pilots pivot the wings upward into the feather position.
20:16This increases drag and slows their descent.
20:20The craft can then drop safely back into Earth's atmosphere
20:24before gliding to a runway.
20:29You're guaranteeing a solid attitude.
20:32That's the position of the spacecraft.
20:33Coming back into the atmosphere at the same time,
20:36you're increasing drag,
20:37so you can actually stabilize that position even more.
20:42Investigators have instant access
20:44to everything that happened on board the spaceship,
20:47thanks to a cockpit video camera.
20:53So he unlocked the feather system?
20:56Correct.
20:56There are two steps to feathering the spaceship.
21:10First, the pilots unlock the feather system so the tailbone can pivot when commanded.
21:15Second, the pilots must pull the feather handle to actually deploy the tailbone.
21:23So those were the two things that we were trying to connect.
21:26So we have the video of the co-pilot unlocking,
21:30but we never see him actually operate the feathers.
21:34But we know from external video that the feathers moved.
21:39So we knew that we had a performance or a dynamic issue.
21:48Somehow, the system designed to slow the craft on descent,
21:53deployed while the crew was accelerating towards the speed of sound.
21:57If the reason why can't be found,
22:04Richard Branson's bold vision for the future of space travel may never be realized.
22:19Ward and her team set up a makeshift headquarters
22:22to catalogue and examine components recovered from the desert.
22:26What about the actuators?
22:31A system of actuators hold the tailbone in place until the pilots are ready to deploy it.
22:38The actuators then extend and move the tailbone into the feathered position for re-entry.
22:46It's right here.
22:47The devices are critical to the proper functioning of the spacecraft.
22:51What we wanted to look at was to make sure that there were no pre-existing failures
22:56within the actuators that could lead to either the feather actuators
23:01not being able to hold the feather down in an un-feathered configuration
23:05or cause some uncommanded movement to the feathered position.
23:09They study the part closely, looking for evidence of when it became damaged,
23:21before or after the mid-air breakup.
23:23Some of the damage that we noticed, we could find particles from the desert floor in it,
23:38which was indicative of it happening post-event.
23:42Impact damage.
23:43Seeing a lot of impact damage to the actuators and some of the other components
23:50was starting to lead us down the fact that we didn't have a pre-existing failure
23:55of the feather system prior to the actual feathering of the vehicle.
24:00Let's have a look at the rest of the system.
24:04We started to wonder, how could we get the feather system to operate
24:08without a failure within the system?
24:11It was a lot of research into the data.
24:15We had a wealth of data at our fingertips.
24:18Let's pull this up here.
24:22Okay, let's have a look at the speed and altitude.
24:27Investigators now study the telemetry data from the flight.
24:31Like a flight data recorder in an airplane,
24:34the telemetry reveals both how the spacecraft was performing
24:39and what the pilots were doing during the flight.
24:42Stop.
24:46Spaceship two is released here, and the engine fires.
24:51Everything looked okay.
24:55Next, we need to look at the pilot inputs after ignition.
24:59We were able to use the data and look and compare it with the video,
25:03so we had to match up and do a time correlation between the video itself
25:07and then also with other data that came down.
25:10Wait a second.
25:12The other actuator was unlocked about eight seconds after the engine lit,
25:19and then four seconds later, spaceship two broke apart.
25:22The data makes it clear that after release,
25:27the pilots performed a series of critical tasks in a very short period of time.
25:33But did they perform those tasks in the right order?
25:37And how accurate was their timing?
25:40Those answers are now crucial.
25:43The precise timing of events in the cockpit could be a key
25:57to understanding the sudden mid-air breakup of spaceship two.
26:02Investigators are determined to learn more.
26:06Arms.
26:07Yellow light.
26:08They turn to engineers from Scaled Composites,
26:14the firm that designed the spacecraft.
26:16You can set up right here.
26:18You want to help them clear the table?
26:20With any accident investigation,
26:22we rely on the parties to the investigation to help us
26:24because they have the expertise needed to help us understand
26:27what the pilots were doing at the time
26:30or should have been doing at the time of the accident.
26:32Great.
26:33So when is he supposed to unlock the feather system?
26:36Between Mach 1.4 and 1.8.
26:43You want to play that?
26:49Yeehaw!
26:521.8?
26:55Unlocking!
26:59Pods.
27:00He unlocked the feather at Mach 0.8.
27:03It's too early.
27:05We then looked at the video
27:08and were able to see that the co-pilot
27:12had actually unlocked the feather system early.
27:19Isn't it safer to unlock it at lower speeds?
27:22No, ma'am.
27:23It can be catastrophic.
27:26This is when upward forces on the tail are greatest.
27:30Ward learns that when the spacecraft is well below the speed of sound,
27:39aerodynamic forces push downward on the tail, keeping it in place.
27:43As it approaches the speed of sound,
27:46the forces change, pulling upward on the tail.
27:51Finally, when the craft moves beyond the speed of sound,
27:54the forces once again hold the tail in place.
27:57That's why pilots are trained to unlock the system in the final stage of the ascent.
28:04Good light.
28:05In the transonic phase, you get a huge amount of upward force on the tail boom,
28:13on the tail of the spacecraft,
28:15and the feather system was not designed to deal with that sort of load.
28:19So when he unlocked it early,
28:24the actuators couldn't hold the tail in place.
28:29Investigators have discovered that it was catastrophic
28:32to unlock the tail boom at a lower speed.
28:38Aerodynamic forces pulled the tail into the deployed position,
28:42which tore the aircraft apart.
28:46Hitch up. Hitch up.
28:48It's a catastrophic destruction of the vehicle,
28:50and you can't come back from that.
28:51Like, they can't, you know, try to lock the feathers again.
28:55There's nothing they can do in the cockpit to save the vehicle.
28:58The co-pilot unlocked the system early.
29:03But why would an experienced test pilot like Mike Allsbury
29:07unlock the tail boom at the deadliest possible moment?
29:14Hitch up. Hitch up.
29:18Hitch up.
29:18Hitch up.
29:22Searching for an answer,
29:24they look into his flight records.
29:27They learn that Allsbury had over 2,100 flight hours.
29:32He'd done eight previous flights on SpaceShipTwo.
29:37In addition to being a test pilot,
29:40he was a flight instructor
29:41and an award-winning project engineer at Scaled Composites.
29:45both of these test pilots were extremely qualified their pilot ratings exceeded the
29:53minimum qualifications required by the FAA in addition they flew multiple aircraft at
29:59scaled composites they also participated in the spaceship one project and also flew the white
30:05knight too let's talk to the man in the cockpit with them peter siebold was badly injured in the
30:13accident Lorenda Ward wants to know if he can shed any light on why his co-pilot unlocked the feather
30:23system 16 seconds before he should have on your flight do you remember when Mike unlocked the
30:31feather no I didn't see anything now when did you know something had gone wrong and everything
30:39started shaking pretty bad after the engine lit fire and there was this really violent pitch up
30:52and I mean g-forces just went through the roof I couldn't breathe
30:59was there anything else
31:03actually yeah
31:08the display rebooted during the flight that's never happened before a malfunctioning display
31:20could be an important clue
31:22whoa they actually had the display reboot in flight the information that was put on that display helps
31:31the crew understand the health of let's say the feather system the electrical system even the propulsion
31:37system so it was of a concern that if the display was not functioning properly the crew could be presented
31:44with erroneous information which could cause them to make improper decisions during the flight there you go
31:52right here perfect investigators connect a spare display with the flight's telemetry data to recreate the conditions after the reboot
32:04scaled had an exact duplicate of the display and we were able to use that data and back drive the display to see what the crew would have been seeing during the accident sequence
32:20if the speed data was faulty and the pilots thought they were flying at Mach 1.4 when really they were flying at only Mach 0.8
32:31it could explain the co-pilot's decision to unlock the feathers early
32:35it's displaying everything correctly
32:41it seems the information the pilots were receiving was completely accurate
32:47they were not the victims of a faulty display
32:52investigators still don't understand the co-pilot's fatal action
32:59the NTSB hopes to learn whether the pilots understood the dangers of unlocking the tail boom too soon
33:13they pour over scaled composites training materials and operating handbooks
33:18we need to figure out what they were told about unlocking the feather system early
33:24they find no mention of the deadly scenario
33:38there's no warning about unlocking after separation
33:41what does the flight test data card say
33:46for every test mission pilots get a flight test card
33:57it includes information on the test vehicle
34:00the mission being conducted
34:03and what the pilots need to do during each phase of the flight
34:07it's the bible of any test flight
34:11unlock the feather once the vehicle reaches 1.4 Mach
34:20there was nothing about not doing it earlier than that
34:26there was no note that said
34:30if you open early it could be a catastrophic failure for the vehicle
34:33so there was nothing to say if you were to unlock early
34:36you could lose the vehicle
34:45they discovered just two written references to the dangers of unlocking the feather early
34:51an email from 2010 and a presentation slide from 2011
34:57that's it
34:59all they could find was one email and one powerpoint presentation
35:02that's four years ago
35:04so this wouldn't have been uppermost in the minds of the pilots
35:07it's possible they really didn't understand the risks
35:10the NTSB's Dr. Catherine Wilson specializes in human performance analysis
35:18one thing that was concerning to investigators
35:22was the fact that the catastrophic nature of this type of error
35:26was not emphasized in training or in manuals
35:30investigators have some questions for the people who designed the spacecraft
35:35why is there no fail-safe mechanism for the feather lock?
35:41we didn't think we needed one
35:43from talking with some of the engineers
35:46we found out that they didn't even consider
35:48the human limitations when designing the system
35:51and so therefore didn't build in any redundancies
35:54that would prevent a single point human error
35:57that would lead to a catastrophic outcome
35:59these guys should know the mission inside out
36:01they kind of hold them to a higher standard
36:05than a normal pilot or commercial or general aviation
36:09they felt that a flight test pilot
36:11would be able to perform perfectly every time
36:14no wonder they didn't expect mistakes
36:18training records show that the co-pilot flew a total of 112 simulator runs
36:27for this mission
36:27simulator training was extremely important for these pilots
36:36it allowed them to run through the scenarios
36:39get comfortable with the scenarios
36:41prior to getting into the actual aircraft
36:43these pilots particularly were in the simulator
36:47about 14 times in the few months leading up to the accident
36:51so they were extremely familiar with what the test card read
36:54and the procedures that they were to follow
36:55never once did the co-pilot unlock the feather early
37:00the records reveal that while allsbury never made the deadly mistake in training
37:11he did on one occasion make a different mistake
37:14he unlocked the feather too late
37:1712 degrees
37:19feather unlock
37:2014 degrees
37:22mission abort
37:23in order to ensure that the feather system works properly
37:30the mission would be aborted if it wasn't unlocked by mach 1.8
37:37if they didn't unlock by 1.8
37:39they would have had aborted the flight
37:41and we had seen in the simulator session data
37:45that the co-pilot had unlocked late
37:48so he has to do it before reaching mach 1.8
37:53if he's late
37:56the mission is aborted
37:57aborting a mission is not fatal
38:01but investigators wonder
38:03did this error in training from months ago
38:07somehow play a role in the crash
38:09mission abort
38:10fire
38:11could it help explain what went wrong
38:16aboard spaceship 2
38:1814 seconds from rocket ignition to total destruction
38:28how did the spaceship 2 test flight go so wrong so quickly
38:34the ntsb reviews the pilot's checklist searching for clues
38:43call out 0.8 mach
38:45call out stabilizer trim settings
38:49l minus 4 checks complete
38:53i'll call fire
38:55trim feather unlock 1.4
38:58it's clear that both pilots had their hands full throughout the short flight
39:06check your attitudes
39:07the pressure that you have
39:08you have to always do the right thing at the exact optimum time
39:14you think ok
39:15i want to be ahead of the vehicle
39:17reset trim to
39:18meaning
39:19not being behind
39:20not being behind trying oh i need to do that
39:21like no
39:22i'm going to need to throw this switch
39:24in x amount of time
39:26so i'm ready to do it right now
39:28it's that pressure to do things at the exact right time that leads you to try
39:37and prepare which might end up having to do something early or inadvertently
39:45investigators believe time pressure may be one reason michael's breed decided to unlock the feather system
39:52early
39:55if they don't unlock the feather mechanism by mac 1.8
39:59then the flight is aborted
40:00so obviously that's going to be weighing on the co-pilot's mind
40:02you want to get that out of the way
40:04then they make another discovery
40:10can i see that simulator video again
40:17it's hardly the same environment
40:21the training simulator did not replicate the actual sensation of a powered flight
40:28it didn't vibrate or simulate g-forces
40:33so it is different being in the real vehicle than the simulator
40:37and while you think you're back in the sim
40:40but as you're launched you realize it's different
40:43and you're being moved around differently
40:50these vibrations and loads may have impacted the co-pilot's decision making on that day
40:54and added additional pressure to him in terms of wanting to complete his tasks in a timely manner
41:03the co-pilot his last powered flight was april 2013
41:07so he hadn't actually been in a powered flight for 18 months
41:10even if you're the very very good test pilot that has to be a little bit unnerving
41:14to get all this vibration and g-loads and speed and everything else
41:18investigators finally understand what happened
41:24it was an unfamiliar environment
41:28he had a lot to do
41:31made a decision to unlock early
41:34perhaps not realizing the deadly implications
41:37just because these are test pilots does not mean that they are not human
41:43that they will not make mistakes
41:44it is possible and we have to take all of these limitations of our pilots into consideration
41:51the NTSB fault scaled composites for not ensuring that their pilots understood the consequences
42:00of unlocking the feather system early
42:02and not taking steps to prevent it from happening
42:05if they would have thought a little bit more about how they could have prevented that early unlocking
42:14versus just relying on the pilots training and performing perfectly every time
42:19unlocking
42:21even just having a sensor that physically prevents them from unlocking until it passes the appropriate threshold
42:29would have prevented this accident
42:31in its final report
42:56the NTSB states that the probable cause of the test flight disaster
43:00was a failure on the part of design engineers to protect against the possibility
43:05that a single human error
43:07could lead to catastrophe
43:09whenever you put humans in the loop
43:14you have the potential for human error
43:16that's always going to be the case
43:17no matter how well you design the system
43:18that's always going to be the case
43:20like I say we're talking about some of the best pilots in the world
43:23and he made a mistake
43:25you know we used to say
43:27the Navy manual for operating the F-14 was kind of written in blood
43:32because every time there was an accident
43:34somebody realized
43:35oh we should have told people about this
43:37and we didn't
43:38so now we will
43:39and you learn those lessons the hard way
43:42we'll learn from this situation
43:45and we will build the second spaceship
43:48we'll make sure it's 100% safe
43:50and we will complete what we started
43:52and I think we're going to make a radical difference to this world
43:54we'll make a radical difference to this world