SpaceX was forced to scrub the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket with just 11 seconds to go on Sunday morning after a Delta Air Lines airplane reportedly flew into an area of restricted airspace close to the launch site.
The launch was being broadcast live and was in its final countdown when a voice from the control room could be heard rapidly saying: “Hold, hold, hold!” with the launch stopped at the 11-second mark.
A short time later, the same voice explained: “Held for a possible aircraft in the airspace.” Unfortunately, the aircraft encroaching on the restricted airspace meant that SpaceX was forced to delay the launch until Monday at the earliest.
Flight tracking sleuths quickly worked out that the aircraft involved in the incident was a Boeing 767 operated by Delta Air Lines that had just taken off from Los Angeles International Airport bound for Honolulu, Hawaii.
After departing LAX at around 7:15 am, the airplane, with as many as 216 passengers onboard, flew north along the California coastline before turning Westward just above Vanderburg Space Force Base – the exact location where the Falcon 9 rocket was just to launch from.
Falcon 9 is a 229.6 ft tall reusable rocket, and on Sunday, SpaceX was using this ground-breaking rocket to launch 27 second-generation Starlink satellites into orbit.
The Falcon 9 rocket involved in Sunday morning’s incident has been used on 10 previous missions.
During a Falcon 9 launch, the area around Vanderburg Space Force Base is subject to an FAA-regulated ‘Temporary Flight Restriction,’ which is a designated area in which aircraft are prohibited from flying for a certain period of time.
SpaceX launches are normally accompanied by a so-called ‘Notice to Air Missions’ or NOTAM, which informs pilots of specific flight restrictions on their intended route.
In this case, however, it is understood that the pilots of Delta flight DL480 were following instructions from Air Traffic Control. The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to open an investigation into how ATC controllers came to instruct the pilots of DL480 to fly through a TFR.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Delta Air Lines commented on the incident, saying: “The Delta crew on flight 480 continues to follow ATC instruction along its journey from Los Angeles (LAX) to Honolulu (HNL). The flight is en route to HNL with no issue.”
The near miss comes just days after dozens of flights were forced to divert after SpaceX’s Starship rocket broke up shortly after it launched during its seventh flight on Thursday.
Debris from the rocket lit up the sky as it rained down over the Caribbean following the unsuccessful launch from another SpaceX launch site near Brownsville, Texas.
Delta Air Lines was one of several carriers affected by the falling debris, confirming that four of its planes had to divert because of an urgent warning issued by the FAA.
