Statement

Branson says he is “determined to find out what went wrong” and learn from the tragedy.

This is obviously a very tough time for everybody who works at Virgin Galactic, who works at The Spaceship Company, and who works for Scaled Composites. And most importantly our thoughts remain with the families of the brave Scaled pilots and all those who have been affected by this tragedy. We are determined to find out what went wrong and are working with the authorities to get that information. It is too early for me to add any details of the investigation at this stage. We’ve always known that commercial space travel in an incredibly hard project. We’ve be undertaking a comprehensive testing program for many years and safety has always been our number one priority. This is the biggest test program ever carried out in commercial aviation history, precisely to ensure that this never happens to the public.