The head of Nasa has described the Boeing Starliner failure as one of the agency’s most serious mistakes. A new internal report places the incident at the same error level as the Columbia and Challenger shuttle disasters. The assessment highlights major concerns about safety and oversight.

The report was released by Nasa following a review of the Starliner programme. It examined what went wrong and how the problems were handled. The findings classify the failure among the highest categories of agency errors. Columbia and Challenger were fatal shuttle accidents that led to major loss of life and significant changes within Nasa.

The Starliner spacecraft was developed by Boeing to carry astronauts to space. The review comes as Nasa continues to work with commercial partners on crewed missions. The agency has said it is committed to improving safety and accountability following the findings.