Musk’s SpaceX Rocket Explodes and Causes Airport Chaos

Does Elon Musk think he is a law unto himself?

It seems that way. And maybe he is. 

The Federal Aviation Authority grounded commercial aircraft flights across Florida as a second successive SpaceX rocket post-launch explosion sent flaming debris to the ground.

The rocket had what was laughably described as "a rapid unscheduled disassembly" as a stop was placed on flights to and from several Florida airports.

The rocket blasted off from Starbase, outside Brownsville in Texas, but it broke up within minutes, travel news portal Travel Mole reported.

The US FAA issued a "ground stop" at Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach International and Orlando airports due to the potential hazard of falling "space launch debris".

I wonder if an ordinary Joe would be allowed to cause such chaos with repeated failures.

It was the second straight explosion of a SpaceX rocket.

Earlier this year, debris rained down on the Turks and Caicos with wreckage still being collected weeks later.

Early evening departures were delayed at the airports while some incoming flights had to be diverted.

SpaceX issued a statement saying: "During Starship’s ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost. Our team immediately began co-ordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses.”

How Elon Musk is inconveniencing Qantas customers

Multi-billionaire Elon Musk is the man to blame for delaying multiple Qantas flights to South Africa.

Flights operated by the Australian flag carrier have been disrupted by falling space junk.

Qantas says its Sydney to Johannesburg flights are being delayed because of debris entering the atmosphere in part of the southern Indian Ocean, news portal Travel Mole reports.

The flights cross a section of the southern Indian Ocean that Musk's SpaceX operation uses for re-entry into the atmosphere.

Qantas says it has had "repeated" delays in recent weeks to avoid deliberately decoupled parts of rockets as they return to earth.

Qantas says it gets little notice of this from SpaceX that it is unable to reschedule in advance.

Qantas operations centre boss Ben Holland told Travel Weekly that the unpredictability of the re-entries poses significant challenges for flight scheduling.

“Over the past few weeks we’ve had to delay several flights between Johannesburg and Sydney due to advice received from the US Government regarding the re-entry of SpaceX rockets over an extensive area of the Southern Indian Ocean,” he said.

“While we try to make any changes to our schedule in advance, the timing of recent launches have moved around at late notice which has meant we’ve had to delay some flights just prior to departure. Our teams notify customers of changes to their flight as soon as we know it will be impacted.”

South African Airways flights have also reportedly been impacted by SpaceX’s operations. 

Arrogant Americans thinking they own the planet. Nothing new there.