Chief pilot of Virgin Galactic, Dave Mackay, gave his first media interview regarding the tragic crash of SpaceShipTwo last October. Mackay spoke about his experience, telling the BBC he was flying WhiteKnightTwo, which carried the small space airplane to 50,000 feet during the ill-fated mission.
While Mackay didn’t see the accident itself, he was above the spaceship when the catastrophic failure happened. “We were listening on the radio and it became apparent fairly early that something had gone seriously wrong,” he said. Circling over the accident scene, he then helped in the search and rescue efforts that followed.
