Virgin spacecraft crash probe could take a year, says investigator

Authorities who carried out their first full day of investigation into a US spacecraft crash that killed one pilot and seriously injured another said probing the incident could take a year.

National Transportation Safety Board acting chairman Christopher Hart said debris from the SpaceShipTwo rocket crash was strewn over an area 8km long, indicating a likely in-flight break-up.

The on-site investigation work would last up to a week, he said, but the full probe piecing together the facts and analysis "will be probably 12 months or so".

The doomed Virgin flight - the 35th by SpaceShipTwo, which is meant to carry tourists on short but expensive trips to space - marked the first time the spaceship had flown on a new kind of plastic-based rocket fuel mixture.

Hart earlier said investigators were entering unknown territory since it was "the first time we have been in the lead of a space launch that involved persons on board."

However, he noted that the test flight "was heavily documented in ways we don't usually see with normal accidents."