The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the accident.
A Go Team was dispatched to the accident site on October 31, 2014.
The team, consisting of around fifteen personnel, arrived at the Mojave Air and Space Port on November 1.
They began their investigation that day.

At a news conference on November 2, NTSB acting chairman Christopher Hart said the lock–unlock lever for the vehicle's feathering mechanism was moved to the unlocked position at slightly above Mach 1.
SpaceShipTwo's feathering mechanism then began moving even though that motion had not been commanded.
The on-site investigation was scheduled to take four to seven days.
It was reported on November 12 that the on-site investigation had been completed and that parts of the wreckage had been placed in secure storage should they be needed for further investigation.
It was expected to take about a year for the final report to be released.

During a hearing in Washington D.C. on July 28, 2015, and a press release on the same day, the NTSB cited inadequate design safeguards, poor pilot training, lack of rigorous federal oversight and a potentially anxious co-pilot without recent flight experience as important factors in the 2014 crash.
They determined that the co-pilot, who died in the accident, prematurely unlocked a movable tail section some ten seconds after SpaceShipTwo fired its rocket engine and was breaking the sound barrier, resulting in the craft breaking apart.
The Board also found that the Scaled Composites unit of Northrop Grumman, which designed and flew the prototype space tourism vehicle, did not properly prepare for potential human slip-ups by providing a fail-safe system that could have guarded against such premature deployment. "
A single-point human failure has to be anticipated," board member Robert Sumwalt said.
Instead, Scaled Composites "put all their eggs in the basket of the pilots doing it correctly."

The report's details of the final moments of the flight reveal that the feather system was unlocked as SS2 accelerated under rocket power through Mach 0.92 at 10.07:28, 9 seconds after release from the WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) carrier aircraft and 14 seconds before the vehicle would have reached Mach 1.4, the minimum speed at which the tail was designed to be unlocked.
Telemetry, in-cockpit video and audio data confirmed that co-pilot Michael Alsbury announced "unlocking" as Mach 0.92 was passed and vehicle breakup occurred within the next 4 seconds.
The feathering device, conceived by Scaled Composites designer Burt Rutan, is deployed after reaching maximum altitude, increasing drag and slowing descent as a carefree and stable reentry method for recovery of SpaceShipOne.
The system operates by rotating the vehicle's twin tail booms upward about the trailing edge of the wing by around 65 degrees; following reentry, the actuators rotate the booms down into the flush position for approach and landing.
Aerodynamic forces when accelerating through the transonic moments of the flight, above Mach 0.85 and below Mach 1.34, push upwards on the tail; releasing the locks before the vehicle passes these speeds means that a pair of actuators were the only things keeping the tail in place against these powerful forces, which had unintentionally been sufficient on earlier test flights.

Investigators said the developer of the spacecraft failed to include systems to protect against human error, believing that highly trained test pilots were simply incapable of making a wrong move, and that co-pilot Michael Alsbury may have been influenced by time pressure, along with strong vibration and acceleration forces he had not experienced since his last powered test flight in April 2013.
The combination "could have increased the co-pilot's stress."
The board found that during years of development and flight tests, engineers at Scaled Composites assumed that any pilot mistakes would occur only in reaction to systems failures, not as the cause of such failures.
The Flight Test Data Card for this mission, giving information on the test vehicle and the step-
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the accident. A Go Team was dispatched to the accident site on October 31, 2014. The team, consisting of around fifteen personnel, arrived at the Mojave Air and Space Port on November 1. They began their investigation that day.
At a news conference on November 2, NTSB acting chairman Christopher Hart said the lock–unlock lever for the vehicle's feathering mechanism was moved to the unlocked position at slightly above Mach 1. SpaceShipTwo's feathering mechanism then began moving even though that motion had not been commanded. The on-site investigation was scheduled to take four to seven days. It was reported on November 12 that the on-site investigation had been completed and that parts of the wreckage had been placed in secure storage should they be needed for further investigation. It was expected to take about a year for the final report to be released.
During a hearing in Washington D.C. on July 28, 2015, and a press release on the same day, the NTSB cited inadequate design safeguards, poor pilot training, lack of rigorous federal oversight and a potentially anxious co-pilot without recent flight experience as important factors in the 2014 crash. They determined that the co-pilot, who died in the accident, prematurely unlocked a movable tail section some ten seconds after SpaceShipTwo fired its rocket engine and was breaking the sound barrier, resulting in the craft breaking apart. The Board also found that the Scaled Composites unit of Northrop Grumman, which designed and flew the prototype space tourism vehicle, did not properly prepare for potential human slip-ups by providing a fail-safe system that could have guarded against such premature deployment. "A single-point human failure has to be anticipated," board member Robert Sumwalt said. Instead, Scaled Composites "put all their eggs in the basket of the pilots doing it correctly."
The report's details of the final moments of the flight reveal that the feather system was unlocked as SS2 accelerated under rocket power through Mach 0.92 at 10.07:28, 9 seconds after release from the WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) carrier aircraft and 14 seconds before the vehicle would have reached Mach 1.4, the minimum speed at which the tail was designed to be unlocked. Telemetry, in-cockpit video and audio data confirmed that co-pilot Michael Alsbury announced "unlocking" as Mach 0.92 was passed and vehicle breakup occurred within the next 4 seconds. The feathering device, conceived by Scaled Composites designer Burt Rutan, is deployed after reaching maximum altitude, increasing drag and slowing descent as a carefree and stable reentry method for recovery of SpaceShipOne. The system operates by rotating the vehicle's twin tail booms upward about the trailing edge of the wing by around 65 degrees; following reentry, the actuators rotate the booms down into the flush position for approach and landing. Aerodynamic forces when accelerating through the transonic moments of the flight, above Mach 0.85 and below Mach 1.34, push upwards on the tail; releasing the locks before the vehicle passes these speeds means that a pair of actuators were the only things keeping the tail in place against these powerful forces, which had unintentionally been sufficient on earlier test flights.
Investigators said the developer of the spacecraft failed to include systems to protect against human error, believing that highly trained test pilots were simply incapable of making a wrong move, and that co-pilot Michael Alsbury may have been influenced by time pressure, along with strong vibration and acceleration forces he had not experienced since his last powered test flight in April 2013. The combination "could have increased the co-pilot's stress." The board found that during years of development and flight tests, engineers at Scaled Composites assumed that any pilot mistakes would occur only in reaction to systems failures, not as the cause of such failures. The Flight Test Data Card for this mission, giving information on the test vehicle and the step-
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