Rocket engine malfunction: SpaceX sued for negligence

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is currently confronted with a negligence lawsuit filed by the wife of an employee whose unfortunate incident resulted in a fractured skull during a rocket engine malfunction in 2022.

Francisco Cabada sustained injuries when a section of a Raptor V2 engine broke loose during pressure testing at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California facility. The detached part, identified as a fuel-controller assembly cover, struck the SpaceX technician’s head, resulting in a skull fracture.

The engine malfunction on January 18, 2022, involving Francisco Cabada was part of the worker injuries highlighted in a Reuters investigation into SpaceX in late 2021. The investigation revealed over 600 previously unreported workplace injuries at Elon Musk’s rocket company, ranging from crushed limbs, amputations, electrocutions, head and eye injuries to one fatality.

His wife, Ydy Cabada, filed the lawsuit in a state court in Los Angeles, California, last week on behalf of her husband, who remains in a coma more than two years later. The lawsuit has not been previously reported.

SpaceX did not respond to inquiries regarding the lawsuit, and Ydy Cabada’s lawyer, Michael Rand, chose not to make any comments.

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Former SpaceX employees familiar with the incident revealed that the accident highlights systemic issues within SpaceX. These sources emphasized that senior managers at the Hawthorne site had received repeated warnings about the risks associated with hastening the engine’s development, inadequate staff training, and insufficient component testing. Employees noted that the part responsible for the failure and subsequent injury had a known flaw that went unaddressed before testing.

SpaceX has refrained from providing any comments regarding the recent Reuters investigation into worker injuries and has chosen not to respond to specific inquiries related to the Cabada case. Furthermore, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which has entrusted SpaceX with $11.8 billion as a private space contractor, has yet to issue an immediate statement regarding the ongoing lawsuit.

SpaceX’s Raptor engines serve as the powerhouse behind Starship, the company’s revolutionary next-generation rocket engineered to transport both satellites and humans into space. Notably, NASA has set its sights on utilizing this very rocket to accomplish the momentous feat of landing humans on the moon within the current decade.