The rocket was undergoing a static fire test of the stage, in which a vehicle is clamped to a test stand while its engines are ignited, when the booster broke free. According to a statement from the company, the rocket was not sufficiently clamped down and blasted off from the test stand “due to a structural failure.”
Video of the accidental ascent showed the rocket rising several hundred meters into the sky before it crashed explosively into a mountain 1.5 km away from the test site.
Uh, I guess that’s why many of the more reasonable static test rigs have the rocket flat on the ground with a hill on the pointy side just in case.
Plus some bay or gulf, relatively quiet, very close by the site helps. It’s too bad the Chinese don’t have any of those.
