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The
Jan. 18, 2022, engine malfunction involving Francisco Cabada was
among the worker injuries detailed in a Reuters investigation of
SpaceX late last year. Reuters documented at least 600
previously unreported workplace injuries at Musk’s rocket
company: crushed limbs, amputations, electrocutions, head and
eye injuries and one death.
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 questions about the lawsuit.
Ydy Cabada’s lawyer, Michael Rand, declined to comment.
Cabada was injured when part of a Raptor V2 engine broke away
during pressure testing at the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne,
California. The part, a fuel-controller assembly cover, careened
into the SpaceX technician’s head, fracturing his skull.
Former SpaceX employees familiar with the accident told Reuters
the incident illustrated systemic problems at SpaceX.
The sources told Reuters that senior managers at the Hawthorne
site were repeatedly warned about the dangers of rushing the
engine’s development, along with inadequate training of staff
and testing of components. The part that failed and struck the
worker had a flaw that was discovered, but not fixed, before the
testing, employees said.
SpaceX had no comment about the Reuters investigation of the
worker injuries, and had no response to detailed questions about
the Cabada case. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, which has paid SpaceX $11.8 billion to date as a
private space contractor, did not immediately comment on the
lawsuit.
SpaceX’s Raptor engines power Starship, the company’s
next-generation rocket designed to send satellites and humans
into space. NASA plans to use the rocket to land humans on the
moon sometime this decade.
(Reporting by Marisa Taylor in Washington; Additional reporting
by Joey Roulette in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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