SpaceX scrubbed the launch of its Falcon 9 rock on Sunday morning with just 11 seconds to blastoff – because air traffic control directed a Delta Air Lines flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu into the restricted airspace of its path.
During the live broadcast, and as blastoff approached, a voice could be heard in the control room: “Hold, hold, hold!” And then, “Held for a possible aircraft in the airspace.”
[T]he 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…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.
The area around the launch was subject to a Temporary Flight Restriction prohibiting flying. A NOTAM would have informed pilots of these restrictions. However, the pilots of Delta 480 were following instructions from air traffic control when they entered the restricted airspace.
According to Delta Air Lines,
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.
From connecting astronauts in space, to providing high-speed internet to more than 4.6M active customers here on Earth, the @Starlink team is laser focused on expanding coverage, increasing speeds and lowering latency so we can connect as many as possible around the world pic.twitter.com/twBoSToUsK
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 16, 2025
The FAA’s Air Traffic Organization which is very broken and a silent safety risk. Controllers aren’t the tools they need. Technology modernization has been poorly managed and in crisis there for decades. The launch is now delayed until Monday.
Perhaps some of the many pilots who follow this blog will ring in… It seems curious that if the pilots were aware of the NOTAM, you would think that they would have questioned the ATC instruction vectoring them into the restricted airspace.
TJ,
TFRs (temporary flight restrictions) that are related to a specific event can change esp. with space activity. It is up to ATC to provide the ultimate last word.
Gary bangs the ATC drum often enough but there is way too much of this kind of stuff.
ATC in the USA is still in the paper age. Outmoded systems and a shortage of experienced ATC Controllers.
Pilots should have questioned their clearance given the NOTAM. Over the years I have questioned controllers instructions several times.
Pilots normally do not read the center and FIR NOTAMs. They rely on their dispatcher and ATC to do that. Pilots got their flight plan from the dispatcher and route clearance from ATC and flew that. The question is how did the Delta dispatcher and ATC miss those NOTAMs? Theres multiple levels of safety that failed here.
Wesley,
NOTAMs esp. for space and military activity are very time-specific and subject to change.
While the NOTAM might have been in effect, it is up to ATC to give directions. Pilots that are under ATC control do not and should not be constantly “…but, what about” to ATC. that is not the way the system works.
“The FAA’s Air Traffic Organization which is very broken and a silent safety risk. Controllers aren’t the tools they need.”
Com’on Gary, are actual sentences too much to ask for?
In the age of AI there’s no excuse for the constant grammar and spelling errors in your posts.
SpaceX should send Delta a bill for the cost of the scrubbed takeoff. I would bet SpaceX has the money to make it stick. Both the pilots and the ATC are at fault. LAX ATC is known to screw up. See EVA Air flight 015, December 16, 2016.
The Pilot in Command has the ultimate decision….. ATC can and does make mistakes so the pilot needs to be well informed. It is the pilot’s responsibility to be up to date with Notams and weather.
I once had tower clear me to land on 31 Left in Palm Springs. I knew an AA MD80 was approaching the runway also, although I did not know his current position. My experience told me that something was not right so I contacted tower and asked “31 left or 31 right?” he replied in a panicked voice, Correction! 31 right! 31 right! 31 right!!!
I made a sharp turn and lined up with 31 Right. When I looked to my left, I was flying parallel to the AA jet.
While I don’t know the circumstances here, one possibility is (another) failure of the NOTAM system. It is written in block caps, and has critical information mixed with a lot of notices that are nearly irrelevant leading to dozens of pages that one has to painfully wade through. And for good measure the material is often abbreviated or very poorly written. After many years of complaints the FAA has been trying to improve the system, but it is still way behind the times.
@jns: Neither the EVA Air incident or today’s incident had anything to do with LAX ATC.
How dare ATC and Delta ruin President Musk’s launch! There should be swift and aggressive punishment for those that caused this. Immediate firings and replacement with indentured servants, sorry, I mean, HB-1 visa holders, who provide ‘labor’ to their overlord, sorry again, I mean, ‘employer,’ for a fraction of the cost of a native hire. Best yet, if they threaten to ‘unionize,’ the overlord can threaten to deport them! It’s fool-proof! Praise be to our global oligarchy!
1990
I detest Musk, but in this case, the fault is not with SpaceX
199o . Couldn’t make the hire with your liberal arts resume at X ? Damn and you were applying for a janitorial position? I’m not sure if there’s a whiny bitch opening anywhere but you seem overly qualified. Good luck.
You get what you pay for. And the FAA keeps getting its budget cut.
Tim Dunn the pilot. We’re all f’ed.
Roberto, obviously you have little or no experience. As an airline pilot instructor with 17,000 hours teaching… Dunn is correct.
I just watched the video of it. The restricted area was depicted on the radar, and the controller vectored the A/C around it. The story is BS.
Naggieone,
You’re on a rando blog berating a rando dude for a rando degree.
Great success in life, brother!
Now get back to brown nosing President Musk.
What Joe ATC said. Too bad the government can’t sue article writers like this for defamation.
ATC vectored this aircraft and another around the airspace. No idea why they cancelled the launch.
Thanks @Alan for ringing in, it’s good to hear it from a Pilot, and not a Delta enthusiast !
The VAsaviation yt channel has LiveATC audio with ADS-B flight track overlay. DL480 did not blue the restricted area. If anyone van pull the TFR size that would be great.
Too many KLAX and ZLA NOTAMS for me…
That poor LAX ATC might already be dealing with frustration—losing their home to a fire, kids with no school to attend, and a spouse yelling for essentials. And now, just to top it all off, he/she might be fired and searching for a new job. Talk about a rough day!
If I am on an IFR flight plan and FAA sends me through a TFR, restricted , “bravo” , “charlie” or “delta ” airspace, atc coordinates with the controlling facility.
I don’t need to question this. If everyone did there would be mass frequency congestion..
If I’m VFR, ATC would verbally announce “Cleared into the Bravo..etc airspace” or I’d ask.
There’s actually a letter from FAA office of Legal Counsel related to the necessity of receiving clearance into otherwise ATC controlled “bravo” airspace while on VFR flight following ,where a center controller gave a radar vector to the pilot that would eventually take him into Los Angeles Bravo airspace controlled by a different atc facility controller. In that case the pilot was unable to get an updated clearance due to…frequency congestion, so to avoid entry into Bravo ,she deviated from the vector she had been given. That turned out to be correct, but for a different reason that one might think. Pilots will find this somewhat informative.
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/agc/practice_areas/regulations/interpretations/Data/interps/2010/Doremire_2010_Legal_Interpretation.pdf
it’s because they coordinate and know the airspace is temporarily “cold” and / or they have permission to transit a/c through.
For
Am curious as to why the writer of the article didn’t run it through a grammar check application. Always best when you are being critical of others. In comparison, ChatGPT writes its comments in excellent English.
I have NOT previously posted the comment below. Obviously, you are not willing to post anything critical about the writer. Will NEVER open anything you write in the future. Get a life.
Comment just submitted:
Am curious as to why the writer of the article didn’t run it through a grammar check application. Always best when you are being critical of others. In comparison, ChatGPT writes its comments in excellent English.
Things happen. The world is not perfect. This one was, fortunately, not lethal. Uncorrected, however, the next one might be. Accordingly, the key question is: who is responsible, and what is the punishment. What matters is ACTION. The source of the problem MUST be removed. Now.
As a couple others noted, if you look at the ADS-B data and listen to the ATC log, you will realize there was never an issue here. They were all aware of the launch and the aircraft was vectored around it. My guess is someone on the ground noticed the airliner and, not knowing how far away it was, called off the launch.