Aviation officials in the United States have described Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship tests as a “potential extreme safety risk” for commercial passenger flights, according to newly released Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents.
Three passenger aircraft carrying 450 people between them were directly in harm’s way at the time of the seventh uncrewed Starship test flight, which exploded over the Turks and Caicos Islands on 16 January 2025, ten minutes after its Texas launch. The incident caused a cloud of “fiery debris” which rained down across parts of the Caribbean region “for roughly 50 minutes,” the FAA records show.
@discoverttheworld Space X explodes over Turks and Caicos #spacex #spacexstarship #turksandcaicos ♬ Cornfield Chase – Hans Zimmer
As a result, air traffic controllers told a JetBlue plane to declare an emergency landing in San Juan, with the pilot heard to say: “In that case, we declare emergency: Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.” An Iberia flight and a private jet were also warned of the risks of attempting to fly through the explosion zone, where Foreign Object Damage could have disabled engines or severely damaged the planes. Flight radar records show how the Starship explosion had other knock-on effects, with the FAA report confirming that two further planes came within dangerous proximity to each other as they tried to avoid the area.
Musk and SpaceX have frequently framed the repeated explosions of their spacecraft as “rapid unscheduled disassemblies,” which they say are a source of valuable development data. In April 2023, the SpaceX team was infamously heard cheering and whooping after a similar incident, and tweeted: “As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation.” After the January explosion, CEO Musk wrote on X: “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed.” Observers noted the meteor-like debris burning through the air in footage captured from an airplane cockpit.
@nour.zein21 SpaceX Starship exploded during launch, and I had the incredible experience of witnessing it from an airplane. This rare moment was both surreal and captivating to see from the sky. Capturing such an event from this perspective is truly unique, and I’m excited to share it with you! #SpaceX #Starship #RocketLaunch #Explosion #SpaceExploration #ElonMusk #SpaceTravel #Aviation #SkyView #RareMoment #Aerospace #SpaceLovers #RocketScience #SpaceInnovation #Technology #Engineering #Astronomy #OuterSpace #InTheSky #TravelExperience #SpaceDebris #SpaceNews #LaunchFailure #Innovation #SpaceTechnology #FutureOfSpace #Astrophysics #SpaceIndustry #SkyWatcher #Science ♬ son original – Nour Zein
Entertainment aside, critics have already pointed out the environmental impact of the Starship launches. Moriba Jah, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, told reporters after the seventh test flight that SpaceX was cheering on the equivalent of a nuclear bomb’s mushroom cloud. “Being mesmerized by the magic of the debris,” he said, means “not realizing what it implies. This stuff can harm ecosystems, can affect populations.”
Now, further fallout is likely, after the latest FAA report also included the claim that, in the instant after the explosion, SpaceX should have immediately called an air traffic safety hotline but had failed to do so.
