MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) -- An explosion killed
two people and critically injured four others at a Mojave Desert airport site
used by the pioneering aerospace company that sent the first private manned
rocket into space, authorities said.
The blast at a Mojave Air
and Space Port facility belonging to Scaled Composites
LLC also left some toxic material, said Kern County fire Capt. Doug
Johnston.
Scaled
is the Mojave-based builder of SpaceShipOne, the first private manned rocket to
reach space, and is developing a successor for the new space tourism
business Virgin Galactic.
Aerospace designer Burt
Rutan, who heads Scaled, told The Associated Press he had no information
and was heading to the scene.
Video news helicopters
showed wrecked equipment and vehicles at the airport in the high desert north
of Los Angeles near Edwards Air Force Base. The blast site was in a remote
unpaved section of the airport.
It was not immediately
clear what caused the blast, said Tony Diffenbaugh, an inspector with the fire
department.
Kern County fire crews and
bomb experts were headed to the scene, where there was concern that airport
personnel could be exposed to hazardous materials, said sheriff's Deputy Vince
Martinez.
Paramedics reported two
people were killed, four were critically injured and one suffered minor
injuries, said Mark Corum, a spokesman for Hall Ambulance Service. The injured
were airlifted to Kern Medical Center about 45 miles from the airport, he said.
A call seeking comment from
the airport manager was not immediately returned.
The Mojave airport is where
the Rutan-designed Voyager aircraft was built. It made history in 1986 when it
achieved the first nonstop flight around the world without refueling.
In 2004, Rutan's
SpaceShipOne, funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, made the first
privately financed manned spaceflight by climbing more than 62 miles (100
kilometer) high on a suborbital journey above Mojave. SpaceShipOne went on to
make two more flights to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
Rutan has since been developing
SpaceShipTwo for entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which
plans to offer $200,000 rides into space for tourists.
Aerospace and defense
contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. owns 40 percent of Scaled and recently agreed
to acquire the rest of it. The deal is awaiting regulatory approval and should
close next month.
Northrop Grumman spokesman
Dan McClain said the company had no comment on the explosion.
The airport is an important
part of Mojave, an unincorporated community of about 4,000 people, said Bill
Deaver, publisher of weekly Mojave Desert News. It employs about 1,500 people,
he said, and is the country's first inland spaceport certified by the Federal
Aviation Administration.
The airport is often
crowded with parked airliners that are not in service. Its flight operations
often involve unusual aircraft undergoing testing, and civilian test pilots
undergo training there.
The airport has been a
popular location for movie and television production. Part of "Speed'' was
filmed at the airport -- a Boeing 707 was blown up in a scene that was supposed
to be Los Angeles International Airport.
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