"I don't mean this flippantly, because I've made plenty of mistakes, but humans will screw up anything if you give them enough opportunity," Sumwalt said. NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt questioned why Scaled would not stress - through better training and safety precautions - the importance of unlocking the feather system on time. The NTSB reviewed a "mountain of data" from the accident, including telemetry from SpaceShipTwo and video recorded both inside and outside the craft, before reaching its conclusion. When Alsbury unlocked the feathering system early, turbulence from SpaceShipTwo's transonic flight overpowered the tail booms' securing mechanism, leading to the vehicle's destruction, NTSB investigators said. During the boost phase, when the rocket motor is firing, it is locked into position to secure the tail booms during flight. SpaceShipTwo's novel feather system rotates the craft's twin tail booms upward to help stabilize the craft during its re-entry into Earth's atmosphere at the end of a flight. The feathering system must be unlocked before SpaceShipTwo reaches a speed of Mach 1.8, or else the flight would have had to abort, NTSB officials said. (Mach 1.0 is the speed of sound.) You can see SpaceShipTwo's tails swing up unexpectedly in this video released by the NTSB. NTSB investigators said the accident occurred when Alsbury unlocked SpaceShipTwo's novel tail-boom "feather" system too early, while the craft was flying at Mach 0.8 and not at Mach 1.4 as the original flight plan required. Pilot Peter Siebold suffered serious injuries but survived when his seat was ejected from the spacecraft as it broke apart, allowing him to use a parachute. Alsbury, a veteran test pilot who had flown on SpaceShipTwo before, was killed in theaccident.
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