The explosion of the SpaceX craft Starship minutes after launching Thursday night caused flight diversions and the interruption of arrivals at several Florida airports as images of the fiery wreckage falling from the sky trended on social media.
After taking off just after 6:30 p.m. EST from a SpaceX site near Brownsville, Texas, several engines on the rocket malfunctioned. Videos posted online showed incredible scenes of the Starship’s debris across Jamaica and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration paused flights into Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando until at least 8 p.m., CNN transportation correspondent Pete Muntean reported.
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An FAA spokesperson told Axios: “During the event, the FAA activated a Debris Response Area and briefly slowed aircraft outside the area where space vehicle debris was falling or stopped aircraft at their departure location.”
After 9 p.m., the FAA said departures from Miami International were delayed by an average of 30 minutes due to “space launch debris.” It warned wait times were increasing.
Air traffic maps showed diversions being made shortly after the rocket’s breakup, with those flights later reorienting toward their original destinations.
In a statement, SpaceX described what occurred:
“During Starship’s ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost. Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses,” it said.
“We will review the data from today’s flight test to better understand root cause. As always, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship’s reliability.”
Thursday’s launch was the eighth for Starship. During its seventh in January, part of the rocket disintegrated over the Caribbean.
In November, Donald Trump joined SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for a Starship launch. While successful, the initial plan of having a rocket booster be “caught” while coming back down to Earth was scrapped. Instead, four minutes into the launch, the mission director ordered the booster to crash into the Gulf of Mexico.
