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Virgin Galactic veteran points to pilot error in July 11 mishap

Las Cruces Sun-News - 9/4/2021

DEMING - The Virgin Galactic test pilot who had been integral to the company's commercial space flight program until he was recently fired alleges pilot error, rather than winds, was to blame for a July 11 flight mishap that is now under investigation.

The Federal Aviation Administration has opened an investigation into why the rocket plane VSS Unity veered off course and into unauthorized airspace on the celebrated flight with Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson and a full crew on board.

Mark Stucky, who piloted the Unity on its first suborbital flight in 2018 with C.J. Sturckow as copilot, wrote on Twitter Thursday: "The facts are the pilots failed to trim to achieve the proper pitch rate, the winds were well within limits, they did nothing of substance to address the trajectory error, & entered Class A airspace without authorization."

Class A airspace refers to space between 18,000 and 60,000 feet above mean sea level, where flights are conducted under instrument flight rules since flight by outside visual reference is unsafe.

In other words, because the Unity ascended at the wrong angle, its return path veered from its approved airspace into airspace where other craft would have been navigating via instruments and not visually. However, the company maintained the deviation was vertical rather than lateral.

Other aircraft were not present. A feature of Spaceport America is its proximity to federally restricted airspace over the neighboring U.S. Army installation White Sands Missile Range.

The spaceport's aerospace operations director, Bill Gutman, explained that spaceport customers "utilize federally restricted airspace for their missions, but some have need of use of the National Airspace System which requires coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration for temporary flight restrictions."

"When active," he continued, "non-participating aircraft are restricted from access to the TFR zones. The FAA controls and coordinates this airspace directly with Spaceport America's customers."

Virgin Galactic is Spaceport America's anchor tenant. The facility was initially constructed from 2006 to 2012 with public money, and has added other tenants and customers over the years as delays have beset Virgin Galactic's commercial suborbital flight enterprise.

The investigation was announced following a New Yorker report that the space plane had diverted from its scheduled course on July 11 after climbing at a shallow angle, altering its trajectory on descent.

Pilots Dave Mackay and Mike Masucci changed the trajectory rather than abort the rocket burn, deviating from their approved airspace for 1 minute and 42 seconds, the company acknowledged while stating the pilots had control at all times and that the crew was never in danger.

"Although the flight's ultimate trajectory deviated from our initial plan, the Unity 22 flight did not fly outside of the lateral confines of the protected airspace," the company said in a statement Thursday.

"As a result of the trajectory adjustment, the flight did drop below the altitude of the airspace that is protected for Virgin Galactic missions for a short distance and time (1 minute and 41 seconds) before re-entering restricted airspace that is protected all the way to the ground for Virgin Galactic missions. At no time did the ship travel above any population centers or cause a hazard to the public."

Virgin Galactic attributed the problem to "high altitude winds," an explanation Stucky rejected.

More: Students talk about their experience seeing the Virgin Galactic launch, meeting Richard Branson

Stucky was still an employee when he watched the celebrated July 11 flight over New Mexico's Spaceport America. A week later, he was terminated by the company, according to recent reporting in the New Yorker, having already been relieved of much of his duties in May following the recent publication of the book, "Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut," by New Yorker reporter Nicholas Schmidle.

In the book, Stucky and others who had worked on the program voiced concerns about its evaluation of errors and other safety concerns at the company.

The company called the New Yorker report "misleading" and said, "Our entire approach to spaceflight is guided by a fundamental commitment to safety at every level."

In subsequent Twitter posts Thursday and Friday, Stucky affirmed his confidence in the company's rocket motor and horizontal launch system (in which the spacecraft is carried to an altitude of 50,000 feet by an aircraft before dropping and engaging its motor for its climb to the edge of space).

On Thursday, the FAA announced that Virgin Galactic could not fly Unity pending the joint investigation by the company and the agency or a determination that "the issues related to the mishap do not affect public safety."

The agency said the investigation could take weeks or months, possibly interfering with plans for a commercial flight with members of the Italian Air Force as soon as this month.

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.

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