Yesterday 04:28 PM
(This post was last modified: Yesterday 04:29 PM by C C.)
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INTRO: A JetBlue plane was en route to Puerto Rico when its pilots got word from air-traffic control they were about to fly through a danger zone. The plane initially went into a holding pattern to stay safe.
“You want to go to San Juan,” an air-traffic controller told the JetBlue flight crew, “it’s going to be at your own risk.”
The risk that January evening was from an experimental SpaceX rocket ship that exploded minutes after liftoff. The jet’s pilots had a decision to make while positioned north of San Juan: continue the trip through a possible rocket debris field, or risk running low on fuel over water.
Two other planes—one operated by Iberia Airlines and a private jet—ended up in a similar quandary. They declared fuel emergencies and traveled through the temporary no-fly zone, Federal Aviation Administration records show.
All three flights, which records show carried a total of some 450 people, landed safely. FAA documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show the Jan. 16 explosion of SpaceX’s Starship posed a greater danger to planes in the air than was publicly known.
The explosion rained fiery debris across parts of the Caribbean region for roughly 50 minutes, the documents said. A piece of debris striking an aircraft in flight could have catastrophic consequences: severe damage to planes and passenger fatalities.
A JetBlue spokesman said the airline is confident that all its flights safely avoided places where debris was reported or observed. An Iberia spokeswoman said its flight went “through the area after all the actual debris had already fallen, so there was no safety risk.”
Air-traffic controllers scrambled to keep planes away from the debris areas, but that increased their workload and led to a “potential extreme safety risk,” according to one FAA report from an air-traffic facility in New York. After the explosion, at least two aircraft flew too close to each other, requiring a controller to intervene to avoid a collision.
The documents also said that SpaceX didn’t immediately inform the agency about the explosion through an official hotline. The FAA requires launch operators to use the hotline to quickly alert a failure. Controllers need the information about debris areas to warn pilots and get them out of harm’s way.
The no-fly debris zones were activated four minutes after the Starship vehicle began to stop providing data about its test flight, FAA documents show. SpaceX confirmed with the agency that Starship was disintegrating 15 minutes after that, according to the documents.
Controllers in Miami first heard of the explosion from pilots seeing the debris, documents show. Other FAA officials learned of the incident via an internal chat. SpaceX, the world’s busiest rocket launcher, declined to comment. After this article was published, SpaceX said the Journal’s reporting was misleading and described the piece as containing incomplete information.
“For every Starship flight test, public safety has always been SpaceX’s top priority. No aircraft have been put at risk,” the company said in a post on X. “SpaceX is committed to responsibly using airspace during launches and reentries, prioritizing public safety to protect people on the ground, at sea, and in the air.”
The explosion of the company’s Starship vehicle alarmed airline industry and U.S. government officials, given the effect it had on air travel and because the number of space operations is set to rise.
FAA leaders convened a panel of experts in February to re-examine how to deal with debris risks from spaceflight failures, following up on earlier work on the issue. That effort gained urgency in March after a Starship vehicle exploded during another test launch.
But FAA officials suspended the safety review in August, an unusual move because the agency’s own policies call for such reviews to address safety risks, according to people familiar with the matter. The agency would deal with debris risk at a different policymaking level, an FAA official said in an email reviewed by the Journal.
The agency said it halted the review because most of the group’s safety recommendations were already being implemented and it needed to consult additional experts, including those outside the U.S. “The FAA will not hesitate to act if additional safety measures are required,” the agency said... (MORE - details)
INTRO: A JetBlue plane was en route to Puerto Rico when its pilots got word from air-traffic control they were about to fly through a danger zone. The plane initially went into a holding pattern to stay safe.
“You want to go to San Juan,” an air-traffic controller told the JetBlue flight crew, “it’s going to be at your own risk.”
The risk that January evening was from an experimental SpaceX rocket ship that exploded minutes after liftoff. The jet’s pilots had a decision to make while positioned north of San Juan: continue the trip through a possible rocket debris field, or risk running low on fuel over water.
Two other planes—one operated by Iberia Airlines and a private jet—ended up in a similar quandary. They declared fuel emergencies and traveled through the temporary no-fly zone, Federal Aviation Administration records show.
All three flights, which records show carried a total of some 450 people, landed safely. FAA documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show the Jan. 16 explosion of SpaceX’s Starship posed a greater danger to planes in the air than was publicly known.
The explosion rained fiery debris across parts of the Caribbean region for roughly 50 minutes, the documents said. A piece of debris striking an aircraft in flight could have catastrophic consequences: severe damage to planes and passenger fatalities.
A JetBlue spokesman said the airline is confident that all its flights safely avoided places where debris was reported or observed. An Iberia spokeswoman said its flight went “through the area after all the actual debris had already fallen, so there was no safety risk.”
Air-traffic controllers scrambled to keep planes away from the debris areas, but that increased their workload and led to a “potential extreme safety risk,” according to one FAA report from an air-traffic facility in New York. After the explosion, at least two aircraft flew too close to each other, requiring a controller to intervene to avoid a collision.
The documents also said that SpaceX didn’t immediately inform the agency about the explosion through an official hotline. The FAA requires launch operators to use the hotline to quickly alert a failure. Controllers need the information about debris areas to warn pilots and get them out of harm’s way.
The no-fly debris zones were activated four minutes after the Starship vehicle began to stop providing data about its test flight, FAA documents show. SpaceX confirmed with the agency that Starship was disintegrating 15 minutes after that, according to the documents.
Controllers in Miami first heard of the explosion from pilots seeing the debris, documents show. Other FAA officials learned of the incident via an internal chat. SpaceX, the world’s busiest rocket launcher, declined to comment. After this article was published, SpaceX said the Journal’s reporting was misleading and described the piece as containing incomplete information.
“For every Starship flight test, public safety has always been SpaceX’s top priority. No aircraft have been put at risk,” the company said in a post on X. “SpaceX is committed to responsibly using airspace during launches and reentries, prioritizing public safety to protect people on the ground, at sea, and in the air.”
The explosion of the company’s Starship vehicle alarmed airline industry and U.S. government officials, given the effect it had on air travel and because the number of space operations is set to rise.
FAA leaders convened a panel of experts in February to re-examine how to deal with debris risks from spaceflight failures, following up on earlier work on the issue. That effort gained urgency in March after a Starship vehicle exploded during another test launch.
But FAA officials suspended the safety review in August, an unusual move because the agency’s own policies call for such reviews to address safety risks, according to people familiar with the matter. The agency would deal with debris risk at a different policymaking level, an FAA official said in an email reviewed by the Journal.
The agency said it halted the review because most of the group’s safety recommendations were already being implemented and it needed to consult additional experts, including those outside the U.S. “The FAA will not hesitate to act if additional safety measures are required,” the agency said... (MORE - details)