The AP reported late today that part of the landing gear for Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo aircraft collapsed upon landing at the end of a test flight today at Mojave Air and Space Port in California. An FAA spokesman told the AP that the left main landing gear, the one that collapsed, was damaged, but he did not know if there was any other damage to the aircraft. SpaceShipTwo was not attached to the aircraft during Thursday’s flight.
Scaled Composites issued a brief statement about the incident, offering few details about what happened in the “minor” incident:
A minor incident occurred on the runway at Mojave airport this morning, which involved a mechanical problem with the left hand-side landing gear of WhiteKnightTwo. No injuries were sustained and the incident did not involve the Spaceship which was not attached to WhiteKnightTwo. WhiteKnightTwo was on its 37th test flight, and has been flying since December 2008. Further information will be posted in due course.
wow third miss-happ, Good thing no spaceship or pax on board, God bless them, Dr. Doug haynes and his Blue Ridge (Nebual) Spaeline is the onely spaceline with a perfect 20 year old FAA’AST airline-spaceline-flight op’s platform.God bless and us all