Virgin Galatic's Spaceship Crashes During Test Flight Over California

Los Angeles (Antara Bali) - A passenger rocket plane developed by Virgin Galactic's crashed Friday after an explosion during a powered test flight over the U.S. state of California, killing one of the pilots, seriously injuring another while leaving debris scattered over a wide area in Mojave desert.

Virgin Galactic's partner Scaled Composites conducted a powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo earlier today. During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle," the commercial company said in a statement.

The explosion came after the plane dropped away from its WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane and fired up its hybrid rocket engine, said Stuart Witt, CEO and general manager of the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

Two pilots were on board when the catastrophic explosion and crash happened. After the anomaly, at least one chute was reportedly sighted over the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, the base from which SpaceShipTwo and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane took off.

The California Highway Patrol confirmed to a local media report that one person was dead and another had suffered "major injuries" in the accident. The survivor was flown to hospital by air ambulance.

The WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, which carried the SpaceShipTwo, landed safely. National Transportation Safety Board investigators were on their way to the site.

SpaceShipTwo, which has been under development at Mojave Air and Spaceport in the desert northeast of Los Angeles, is designed to carry two pilots and six passengers on suborbital spaceflights. Tickets to ride the spaceship cost 250,000 U.S. dollars each.

The crash was the second catastrophe in the commercial space industry in a week. On Tuesday night, an unmanned rocket operated by private U.S. firm Orbital Sciences Corp., exploded seconds after its launch.(MFD)