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