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Surviving spaceship pilot described as ‘alert’

MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) — The injured test pilot who survived the destruction of Virgin Galactic’s prototype space tourism rocket is described as alert and talking with his family and doctors.

Word about the condition of Peter Siebold came Saturday in a statement from his employer, Scale Composites, the Mojave, California, company developing SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic.

Scaled Composites says Siebold, its director of flight operations, was serving as pilot during Friday’s ill-fated test flight high over the Mojave Desert.

Co-pilot Michael Alsbury was killed.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the accident.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

School bus emergency? Fairfax County students have a plan to handle it

This story is part of WTOP’s 2026 Back to School coverage. The wheels on the bus will soon be going round and round again in Fairfax County, Virginia, and some of its young riders are learning what to do if there’s an emergency on the way to school. The annual Safety Patrol Training Camp, hosted by Fairfax County Public Schools' Office of Transportation Services, combined hands-on exercises with classroom lessons to teach students how to keep calm during emergencies on buses. The training can feel remarkably realistic, with overturned school buses on their side or completely upside down in the middle of the county bus depot. Other buses, right side up, fill with smoke that is water-based but mimics the intensity of a bus overheating.
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