The Federal Aviation Administration briefly interrupted flights to several Florida airports Thursday evening after a failure of SpaceX Starship.
The incident marks the second time this year that SpaceX experienced an accident during a starship flight test, which made it possible to disrupt debris and commercial flights.
Affected airports included Miami international airport, which is a American airlines HUB and airports serving Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando, in Florida.
The regulator said that, in a press release on Thursday, it now forces SpaceX to “carry out an investigation into misadventures on the loss of the starship vehicle during launch operations on March 6.
During the event, the FAA said that it “activated a debris response area and briefly slows down planes outside the area where debris of space vehicles fell or stopped aircraft at their place of departure. Normal operations resumed”.
SpaceX said, in an article on X Thursday evening: “During the combustion of the ascent of starship, the vehicle experienced rapid disassembly and unforeseen contact and contact was lost. Our team immediately started coordination with security managers to implement pre-Planified emergency responses.”
The SpaceX New Generation Starship Space Spatial Vaix at the top of its Heavy Super Booster is launched during its eighth test at Boca Chica Launch Pad of the company in Brownsville, Texas, United States, March 6, 2025.
Joe Skipper | Reuters
The aerospace and defense entrepreneur led by Elon Musk also said that he was planning to “examine today’s flight data to better understand” the deep cause of the accident.
Starship took off the company’s duport near Brownsville, Texas, at 6.30 p.m. he for its eighth test flight.
In a live flow showing the test flight, several engines seemed to cut while the vehicle of the upper sports vessel still climbed. The company then lost communication with the spacecraft, but managed to successfully use the arms of its launch tower to catch the rocket Super Booster.
On January 16, dozens of flights were diverted after the Starship rocket of SpaceX broke and the FAA warned against the “debris of space vehicles”. The regulator had warned pilots of “the dangerous area for the fall in debris of rocket dishes”.
The Super Heavy super-booster returns to its launch pad after the SpaceX Starship continued in space after being launched during its eighth test on the Boca Chica launching pad from Brownsville, Texas, United States, March 6, 2025.
Joe Skipper | Reuters
Trade airlines, private planes and space industry are competing for airspace, especially in the congestioned area off Florida.
SpaceX was working on a mishap on what caused the previous incident, but the FAA was authorized to proceed to the eighth flight before completing the investigation.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to an additional information request.
The highest and most powerful rocket ever launched, Starship is essential to SpaceX’s ambitions. When stacked on the super heavy booster, Starship measures 403 feet high and measures approximately 30 feet in diameter.
The founder of SpaceX Musk is also a main advisor to Trump, responsible by the president to make radical cuts to government agencies. Its scope on regulatory organizations, including FAA, has aroused criticism and concerns of democratic legislators worried about conflicts of interest, security risks and more.