This came in from my son who is a pilot based out
of Atlanta. He was responding to my e-mail to him.
----- Original Message -----
I know
how you feel!
I was
at 37,000 feet exactly 30 miles north of the Kennedy Space Center this morning
when the news came across the Jacksonville and Miami Center
frequency. "Shuttle Columbia has broken up on re-entry over east Texas at
approximately 200,000 feet,....the plasma trail is still being tracked,....will
advise as we receive more information", I kid you not, I was looking at the
landing strip 30 miles away when those words came across; they then gave us a
re-route slightly west of the Cape (normally we would go right over the
top, since the Shuttle comes in at 65,000 feet and makes a 180 degree turn over
the Atlantic before crossing the shoreline at 10,000 feet) and we continued on
to the Miami area. On the way back up to Atlanta 1 hour later an American
Airlines guy was describing and recounting the first hand observations
from their cockpit as they were approaching the east Texas border with Arkansas
enroute to Florida.
One of
the 'gov't experts' we fly seems to think that the
preliminary indications are heat tile damage to the bottom of the shuttle
wing/fuselage area, causing a blow-torch effect in the aft cargo bay and ensuing
failure of a cargo bay door which led to dynamic load failure of the tail
structure, etc., etc., etc., sounded like he had just got off the phone with
somebody in the loop, but who knows. Probably a million theories before
this time tommorrow. I doubt we'll know anything for some time to
come. All we can do today is pray for the souls lost and the souls
tormented that they may all find some peace. Stay in
touch!
Love
ya,
Sandy
B.
The shuttle came directly over St. George, this
morning. I went out side and watched it. It was about 4 minutes before
7:00 A.M.MST It was so fantastic to see. A bright white light leaving a long
long white contrail against a still semi dark sky. As it passed
overhead, I could see a faint red glow coming off of what I suppose was the
bottom of the ship.
Having never seen a reentry or even seen photos
of a reentry, I guessed everything was going according to plan. I did,
however, see a couple of "puffs" of smoke (contrail) as it flew toward me. I
just assumed that it was hitting some uneven air pockets as it reentered the
atmosphere at 15000 MPH.
I am just sick about this, but thought you would
like a firsthand discription.
BB