During what was supposed to be a static test launch, a private Chinese aerospace company accidentally launched one of its rockets, which crashed spectacularly into a nearby mountain.In a translation of that social media statement, Space Pioneer said that the first stage of the Tianlong-3 test run had been going "normally" when the body of the reusable craft separated unexpectedly due to "structural failure.
"After liftoff, the onboard computer automatically shut down, and the rocket fell into a deep mountain 1.5 kilometers southwest of the test bench," the statement reads. "The rocket body disintegrated after falling into the mountain."shows, the rocket landed in a wooded area of the hills surrounding Gongyi. Both the company and local authorities confirmed that nobody was hurt in the incident, though the rocket crash did, per theWow.
That fact, and the entire debacle, makes it pretty lucky that the Tianlong-3 accident didn't cause more damage than a quickly-extinguished forest fire.