This article lists verifiable spaceflight-related accidents and incidents resulting in human death or serious injury. These include incidents during flight or training for crewed space missions and testing, assembly, preparation, or flight of crewed and robotic spacecraft. Not included are accidents or incidents associated with intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests, death or injury to test animals, uncrewed space flights, rocket-powered aircraft projects of World War II, or conspiracy theories about alleged unreported Soviet space accidents.

, 19 people have died during spaceflights that crossed or were intended to cross the boundary of space as defined by the United States, that being above sea level. Astronauts have also died while training for space missions, such as the Apollo 1 launch pad fire that killed an entire crew of three. There have also been some non-astronaut deaths during spaceflight-related activities.

As of April 2026, more than 188 people have died in spaceflight-related incidents. In addition, astronaut Peter Siebold is the only person in human history to survive an in-flight spacecraft breakup; on 31 October 2014, Siebold survived a 15 kilometer (50,000 ft) fall without supplemental oxygen in only a thin flight suit, unbuckling from his ejection seat and deploying his parachute at 17,000 feet. From the breakup, Siebold suffered serious injuries to his eyes, face, right arm and the right side of his chest, which required multiple surgeries in the weeks following the crash. Despite his injuries, Siebold made a full recovery.

Astronaut fatalities

During spaceflight , there have been five incidents in which a spacecraft in flight suffered crew fatalities, killing a total of 15 astronauts and 4 cosmonauts. Of these, two had reached the internationally recognized edge of space (100 km or 62mi above sea level) when or before the incident occurred, one had reached the U.S. definition of space at 266,000 ft, and one was planned to do so. In each of these accidents, the entire crew was killed. , a total of 791 people have flown into space and 19 of them have died in related incidents. This sets the current statistical fatality rate at 2.4 percent.

NASA astronauts who died on duty are memorialized at the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Merritt Island, Florida. Cosmonauts who died on duty under the Soviet Union were generally honored by burial at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow. No Soviet or Russian cosmonauts have died during spaceflight since 1971.

+Spaceflight fatalities above the Kármán line Date Incident Mission Fatalities Decompression in space The crew of Soyuz 11 died after undocking from space station Salyut 1 after a three-week stay. A cabin vent valve construction defect caused it to open at service module separation. After the capsule landed, the recovery team found the crew dead.

The Soyuz 11 landing coordinates are , southwest of Karazhal, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and about northeast of Baikonur, in open flat country far from any populated area. In a small circular fenced area at the site is a memorial monument in the form of a three-sided metallic column. Near the top of the column on each side is the engraved image of the face of a crew member set into a stylized triangle.

As of January 2026, these three are the only humans to die outside of Earth, as their deaths occurred about above the planet, above the Kármán line which is 100 kilometers (328,084 ft) above the surface, meaning their deaths occurred in space.

+ Spaceflight fatalities below the Kármán line Date Incident Mission Fatalities Parachute failure The one-day mission was plagued by a series of mishaps with the new spacecraft type, culminating with its parachute not opening properly after atmospheric reentry. Komarov was killed when the capsule hit the ground at high velocity. The Soyuz 1 crash site coordinates are , west of Karabutak, Province of Orenburg in the Russian Federation, about east-southeast of Orenburg. In a small park on the side of the road is a memorial monument: a black column with a bust of Komarov at the top. Control failure During X-15 Flight 191, Adams' seventh flight, the plane had an electrical problem followed by control problems at the apogee of its flight. The pilot may also have become disoriented. During reentry from a 266,000 ft (50.4 mile, 81.1 km) apogee, the X-15 yawed and went into a spin at Mach 5. The pilot recovered, but went into a Mach 4.7 inverted dive. Excessive loading led to structural breakup at about 65,000 feet (19.8 km). Adams was posthumously awarded astronaut wings, as his flight had passed an altitude of 50 miles (80.5 km)."Pilot Killed As X-15 Falls From Altitude Of 50 Miles", Toledo Blade newspaper, 16 November 1967. Launch booster failure, vehicle disintegration during launch – Space Shuttle Challenger disaster The Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds after lift-off on STS-51-L at an altitude of . The investigation found that cold weather conditions caused an O-ring seal to fail, allowing hot gases from the shuttle's solid rocket booster (SRB) to impinge on the external propellant tank and booster strut. The strut and aft end of the tank failed, allowing the top of the SRB to rotate into the top of the tank and causing it to explode. Challenger was thrown sideways into the Mach 1.8 windstream and broke up with the loss of all seven crew members. NASA investigators determined they might have survived the spacecraft disintegration, possibly unconscious from hypoxia; some tried to activate their emergency oxygen. Any survivors of the breakup would have been killed, however, when the largely intact cockpit hit the water at 320 km/h (200 mph), about 32 km (20 miles) east of Cape Canaveral at 28.64 degrees north, 80.28 degrees west."Shuttle explodes; crew lost" , Frederick, OK – Daily Leader newspaper, 28 January 1986., The Palm Beach Post, 29 January 1986. About half of the vehicle's remains were never recovered, and fragments still washed ashore as late as a decade later on the coast of Brevard County, Florida. Vehicle disintegration on re-entry – Space Shuttle Columbia disaster The Space Shuttle Columbia was lost as it returned from a two-week mission (STS-107) when previously detected damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS) resulted in the spacecraft breaking apart during reentry at an altitude of just under 65 km and a speed of about Mach 19. Investigation revealed that a piece of foam insulation had fallen off the external tank and hit the shuttle during launch, damaging the reinforced carbon-carbon leading edge of the left wing and allowing the extreme heat of reentry to cause structural failure."Space Shuttle debris rains across Texas" , Ocala, FL Star Banner newspaper, 2 February 2003.

The vehicle began to break up over California and fell in fragments over eastern Texas and central Louisiana.

During training or testing In addition to accidents during spaceflights, 11 astronauts, test pilots, and other personnel have been killed during training or tests.

+ Fatalities during training or testing for spaceflight Incident Date Mission (program) Fatalities Description Fire in altitude chamber (Soviet Air Force Group 1) First space-related fatality. During a 15-day endurance experiment in a low-pressure altitude chamber with at least 50% oxygen atmosphere, Vostok cosmonaut trainee Bondarenko dropped an alcohol-soaked cloth onto an electric hotplate. He suffered third-degree burns over most of his body and face, and died in a hospital 16 hours later. Training jet crash (NASA Astronaut Group 3) Freeman was flying a T-38 jet trainer on landing approach to Ellington AFB near Houston, Texas, when a goose struck the left side of the cockpit canopy. Shards of Plexiglas entered the engine intake and caused both engines to flame out. Freeman ejected too close to the ground for his parachute to open properly. Training jet crash Gemini 9 See and Bassett attempted to land their T-38 at Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri, in bad weather, and crashed into the adjacent McDonnell Aircraft factory, where they were going for simulator training for their Gemini 9 flight. Fire during spacecraft test Apollo 1 An electrical fire spread quickly in the pure oxygen atmosphere of the cabin and claimed the lives of all three Apollo 1 crew members during a "plugs-out" test in preparation for their planned 21 February launch. The incident resulted in an extensive redesign of the Apollo Command Module, many changes to safety equipment and procedures, and a delay of over a year before a crewed Apollo launch. Training jet crash (Apollo) Williams, flying alone in a T-38 jet from Cape Kennedy, Florida to Houston, Texas, crashed due to an aileron control mechanical failure, about north of Tallahassee, Florida. Williams ejected too low for the parachute to open properly. Williams had been selected as lunar module pilot on an Apollo crew with commander Pete Conrad and command module pilot Richard Gordon. Training jet crash (Manned Orbiting Laboratory) The first African-American astronaut, selected for the Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, was killed when his F-104 Starfighter jet crashed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, while practicing a series of high speed, quick descent landings with Major Harvey Royer as pilot in command. Both crewmen ejected; Royer survived with injuries, but Lawrence, the instructor pilot, was found in his ejection seat, parachute not fully deployed. Drowned during water recovery training (Soviet Air Force Cosmonaut Training Group 11) Sergei Yuriyevich Vozovikov was a member of the Soviet Air Force Cosmonaut Training Group 11. His Cosmonaut training was from 1 October 1991 to 6 March 1992. He drowned 11 July 1993 during water recovery training in the Black Sea, near Anapa, Russia. Spaceplane crash during test flight VSS Enterprise PF04 Michael Alsbury was killed and Peter Siebold was seriously injured when SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise disintegrated during a powered atmospheric test flight over California due to premature deployment of the feathering system.

Non-fatal incidents during spaceflight Apart from actual disasters, 40 missions resulted in some very near misses and also some training accidents that nearly resulted in deaths.