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E-mail StoryScaled Composites involved in Mojave airport explosion
| Thursday, Jul 26 2007 3:08 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Jul 26 2007 6:07 PM
Scaled Composites, the company that built and flew SpaceShipOne, is involved in a large explosion that killed two people and critically injured four at Mojave Air & Space Port, according to the Kern County Fire Department.
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In this photo made from video provided by KCAL 9 television, shows an explosion site at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif. on Thursday July 26, 2007. Two people were killed and four others injured Thursday by an explosion at a Mojave Desert airport that is home to pioneering civilian rocket programs, authorities said. (AP Photo/KCAL 9)
Airplanes sit idle at AVTEL in Mojave in this 2001 file photo of Mojave Airport.
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The incident, according to Kern County Fire Department spokesman Tony Diffenbaugh, happened at a Scaled Composites facility used to test rocket motors, he said. The department was called at 2:34 p.m. today to a remote testing site in the northeast section of the airport, he said.
The four people in critical condition are being taken to Kern Medical Center, said Mark Corum, director of public and media relations for Hall Ambulance. Paramedic units are on scene and Hall Air responded.
Diffenbaugh said the damage was extensive and workers at Scaled Composites were "pretty shook up." He declined to call the incident an explosion, calling it a catastrophic event.
He said all the injured people were male and the bodies of the two dead remain at the scene.
People in the area said the explosion sounded like the sonic booms they usually hear in the area.
Larry Whitfield was at the airport when it happened, working around large machinery. He heard it over the noise of the machines.
"It sounded like a sonic boom, but it shook the ground, so it was more like an explosion," he said. "It was one heck of an explosion."
The explosion involved nitrous oxide, according to Carin Enovijas, editor at The Tehachapi News. It happened at a rocket testing facility that rents space at the airport, Enovijas said.
She said it wasn't a homeland security issue.
Thursday’s blast came less than eight weeks after a powerful explosion rocked the airport on June 3.
In that incident, a bunker used by Alpha Explosives to store commercial-grade explosives blew up, scattering hazardous materials and causing a fire in an old airliner.
No one was injured in that incident.
An employee at Alpha Explosives said Thursday’s explosion was not connected to the company.
Diffenbaugh said that today's explosion occurred about a quarter mile away from the June 3 explosion.