FAA Needs To Release Criteria For Submission Of Launch Accident Cases To Operators

The FAA's unsupervised Spaceshiptwo aircraft at the time of the accident. (Photo: Twitter/X @virgingalctic)

JAKARTA The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a special report for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This report was issued on Thursday, December 7 last.

Through the report, GAO said that the FAA should improve the investigation process in the case of the launch accident. The FAA should also release criteria regarding when the investigation is submitted directly to the launch operator.

Prior to this report was released, GAO had investigated 50 accident cases for nearly 23 years, from 2000 to the beginning of this year. The basis for this investigation is one case that is not handled by the FAA, whereas 49 other cases are directly held by the agency.

The only case released by the FAA was the SpaceShipTwo crash, Virgin Galactic's suborbital aircraft, in 2014. At that time, the FAA submitted an investigation into the SpaceShipTwo case to the National Transportation Safety Council (NTSB).

GAO had asked about one case that was excluded. The FAA also replied that they were unable to continue the investigation due to a lack of data regarding the design of the SpaceShipTwo vehicle.

Given the highly specialized vehicle design among the companies, the agency (FAA) does not have adequate resources for internal investigations, GAO wrote in its report.

The FAA also added that they may be able to investigate the accident, but the time will be longer due to a lack of data. Their investigation could run up to 10 or 20 times longer than usual.

Until now, the FAA does not have any criteria related to the party that will investigate the case. Although wanting to be more flexible, this step was considered wrong by GAO and FAA considered inconsistent in decision making.

(FAA should) develop criteria to determine when the agency will authorize launch operators to lead accident investigations and evaluate comprehensively the effectiveness of its accident investigation process," GAO explained.