A co-pilot of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic team remembers his colleague, who died in a tragic crash during one of the test flights. He says the death of his colleague will not go in vain as it will give valuable insight for the future success of their space project.
Dave Mackay opens up about the incident in which he, Mike Alsbury and Peter Siebold were involved in October 2014. Their team was testing two of their airships: the VSS Enterprise SpaceShipTwo operated by the now-deceased Alsbury and survivor Siebold and the mothership White Knight Two directed by Mackay and other colleagues.
Mackay, who hails from Helmsdale in the Scottish Highlands, launched the mothership to about 50,000 feet before the rocket ship was released. With the unclear Californian desert sight, Mackay knew something was wrong when he and his colleagues heard on the radio that an obviously unfavorable incident was happening to Alsbury's team.
"We didn't see anything. We launch the spaceship and it drops below us several hundred feet before it ignites the rocket motor," Mackay recalls. "When it was apparent the wreckage had hit the ground, we descended to try to give some support in any way we could. Which involved, basically, finding out where the vehicle was and finding out where the survivor was and relaying that position back to emergency services."
Thirty-nine-year-old Alsbury died, while 43-year-old Siebold survived the fatal crash after a parachute landing.
"People were shocked and very saddened and it took quite a while, a couple of days or so, to really get over that initial shock I think," Mackay continued. "But there was a determination to find out what had happened and why it had happened."
Reports point out to the possibility that Alsbury opened the ship's "feather" system way too early. The said system functions as the ship's balancer during re-entry to the Earth. If the tails of the airship, which fold by 65 degrees to slow and prepare themselves, are manipulated at the wrong time, the risk of crash is highly likely. America's National Transportation Safety Board is set to release the official results of the investigations made.
Despite the team's fatal loss, Mackay remains optimistic. The Virgin Galactic team is composed of several smart individuals, and with the sacrifice of people like Alsbury, their project is bound for success, he says. Although Mackay believes that there are no major technical problems with the airships, their group is implementing interventions so such lethal accident won't happen again.
"It is hard, it has turned out to be harder than we thought it would but if it was easy it would have been done a long time ago and we're enjoying the challenge," he closed.
Photo: Jeff Foust | Flickr
