FAA briefly stops flights to Florida airports after the Spacex test failure

The federal aviation administration briefly stopped the flights to several Florida airports on Thursday night after a Spacex spacecraft test failure.

The incident marks the second time this year that Spacex experienced a setback During a spacecraft flight test, which results in the rain down and commercial flights are interrupted.

Affected airports included Miami International Airport, which is a American Airlines Hub, and airports that serve Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando, Florida.

The regulator said that, in a statement on Thursday, it now requires that Spacex “conduct a setback investigation into the loss of the ship’s ship during the launch operations on March 6”.

During the event, the FAA said, “he activated a rubble response area and briefly slowed down the airplanes where the rubble of the space vehicle fell or stopped the planes in their exit location. Normal operations have been resumed.”

Spacex said, in an X publication on Thursday night: “During Starship’s rise burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unchanging disassembly and the contact was lost. Our team immediately began coordination with security officials to implement previously planned contingency responses.”

The aerospace and defense contractor led by Elon Musk also said he plans to “review today’s flight test data to better understand” the root cause of the accident.

Starship took off from the company’s space port near Brownsville, Texas, at 6:30 pm et for its eighth test flight.

In a live broadcast that shows the test flight, several engines seemed to cut while the upper stage ship vehicle was still climbing. Then, the company lost communication with the spacecraft, but could successfully use the arms of its launch tower to catch the super heavy rocket reinforcement.

On January 16, dozens of flights were deflected After the Spacex spacecraft rocket separated, and the FAA warned about the fall of the “space vehicle debris.” The regulator had warned the “Dangerous Area for the fall of rubble of the rocket spacecraft”.

Commercial airlines, private airplanes and the space industry compete for airspaceparticularly in the congested area of ​​Florida.

Spacex was working on an accident investigation on what caused the previous incident, but the FAA allowed to continue with the eighth test flight before completing the investigation.

Spacex did not immediately respond to a request for more information.

The highest and most powerful rocket ever released, Starship is essential for Spacex ambitions. When stacked in the super heavy reinforcement, the spacecraft measures 403 feet and is about 30 feet in diameter.

The founder of Spacex, Musk, is also a Trump senior advisor, commissioned by the president to sweep the government agencies. Its scope to regulatory agencies, including FAA, has received criticism and concerns of democratic legislators concerned about conflicts of interest, security risks and more.