Virgin Galactic's commercial spaceship crashed after experiencing an "in-flight anomaly" during a test flight on Friday. California Highway Patrol said there is one fatality and one major injury.
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With two pilots on board, SpaceShipTwo took off at 12:19 p.m. ET from Mojave, California in a powered test flight that the company called a "Halloween treat."
But less than an hour later, the company tweeted that something had gone wrong. Virgin Galactic confirmed the loss of the spaceship but has given no other details about the cause of the accident, which occurred in the desert northeast of Los Angeles.
The space tourism company, which has promised to shuttle hundreds of paying customers to orbit when it begins commercial flights next year, said it is working with authorities to determine the cause of the crash.
Doug Messier, a space blogger currently researching a book about XCOR Aerospace, tweeted that he saw the aircraft "blow up" and that it "came down in pieces." He added that he saw a body still in a seat.
"The ship broke apart and started coming down in pieces over the desert," he said in a tweet describing what he witnessed, adding that "debris is scattered all over the road."
Let's wait for the first few crashes
