6. NASA Accident Investigation Team Final Report, 57. The ten members assigned to the MIT for a mission were published via internal memo six weeks before flight.
7. Dave Whittle, “Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) Process Lessons Learned Video Interview” (Washington, DC: NASA Headquarters, 2013), www.nasa.gov/externalflash/CAIB/transcripts/whittle/whittle03.pdf.
8. Jan Amen email, February 4, 2003.
9. Donna M. Shafer and Amy Voigt LeConey, “First Hand Account of Selected Legal Issues from the Recovery and Investigation of the Space Shuttle Columbia,” Journal of Space Law, vol. 30 (2004), 40, www.nasa.gov/externalflash/CAIB/docs/CAIB%20Law%20Review%20Article.pdf.
10. Phillip Stepaniak, executive ed., Loss of Signal: Aeromedical Lessons Learned from the STS-107 Columbia Space Shuttle Mishap, SP-2014-616 (Washington, DC: NASA, 2014), 33.
11. Shafer and LeConey, “Legal Issues,” 42.
12. NASA, Space Shuttle Columbia Material Recovery, Report CB-QMS-024 (Houston, TX: NASA Johnson Space Center Flight Crew Operations Directorate, September, 2004, unpublished), 2.
13. NASA, Report CB-QMS-024, 2.
14. Out of respect for the crew’s families, NASA has never released details about the identity, location, or condition of any crew member’s remains during the recovery.
15. Greg Cohrs, “Hemphill Recovery of the STS-107 Columbia, Notes of Greg Cohrs, May 28 through June 16, 2003,” unpublished, 4.
16. Michael Cabbage and Robyn Suriano, “Fatal Return: A Stunned NASA Searches for Answers,” Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, FL), February 2, 2003, 1–20.
17. Greg Cohrs email to Jonathan Ward, September 27, 2016.
18. Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA), “FEMA Emergency Operations Vehicle (EOV),” fact sheet, undated [2003 or earlier].
19. Stepaniak, Loss of Signal, 34.
20. Cohrs, “Notes,” 4.
21. Jeff Williams, interviewed by Connie Hodges, Center for Regional Heritage, Stephen F. Austin State University, March 24, 2003, digital.sfasu.edu/cdm/search/collection/col/searchterm/audio/field/title/mode/all/conn/and/order/nosort.
Chapter 6: Assessing the Situation
1. Greg Cohrs email to Jonathan Ward, December 19, 2016.
2. FEMA, “FEMA Puts Federal Resources into Action to Assist State and Local Authorities in Search, Find and Secure Mission for Columbia Debris,” news release HQ-03-029, February 2, 2003.
3. Cohrs, “Notes,” 5.
4. Cohrs, “Notes,” 5.
5. Dom Gorie began alternating in this role with Horowitz several days into the recovery period.
6. US Navy, US Navy Salvage Report, Space Shuttle Columbia, Report S0300-B5-RPT-01 (Washington, DC: US Navy, Naval Sea Systems Command, September 2003), 1-7.
7. Stepaniak, Loss of Signal, 21.
8. Paul Keller, writer-editor, Searching for and Recovering the Space Shuttle Columbia: Documenting the USDA Forest Service Role in This Unprecedented ‘All-Risk’ Incident, February 1 through May 10, 2003, www.fireleadership.gov/toolbox/lead_in_cinema_library/downloads/challenges/Searching_Recovering_Shuttle_Columbia_2003_Paul%20Keller.pdf.
9. Byron Starr, Finding Heroes: The Search for Columbia’s Astronauts (Vancouver, Canada: Liaison Press, 2006), 50.
10. NASA, “NASA Asks for Help with Columbia Investigation,” news release H03-033, February 2, 2003.
11. FEMA, “FEMA Puts Federal Resources into Action to Assist State and Local Authorities in Search, Find and Secure Mission for Columbia Debris,” news release HQ-03-029, February 2, 2003. This was a suite of Airborne Spectral Photo-imaging of Environmental Contaminants Technology (ASPECT) sensors mounted in a twin-engine aircraft.
12. Jan Amen email, February 4, 2003.
13. Stepaniak, Loss of Signal, 21.
14. Greg Cohrs email to Jonathan Ward.
Chapter 7: Searching for the Crew
1. Stepaniak, Loss of Signal, 25–7.
2. Stepaniak, Loss of Signal, 25–7.
3. Cohrs, “Notes,” 6.
4. Starr, Finding Heroes, 81–8.
5. Interview with Marsha Cooper. Several years after the accident, the sister of one of Columbia’s crewmen came to Sabine County to visit the location where her brother had been recovered. Marsha Cooper was her escort and host. As they sat outside and talked the evening she arrived, the astronaut’s sister told stories about her brother’s childhood. She said that he used to enjoy fishing with their father, who would often remark about seeing a reflection of a white dog in the water. Cooper said she was stunned. This astronaut’s remains were found near the water. His was the recovery at which the white dog had followed the sheriff and the rest of the group into the woods to the site. Cooper told the astronaut’s sister about the incident, and they both broke into tears.
6. Interviews with Billy Ted Smith and Mark Allen; Sabine County incident management team press briefing on February 3, 2003, edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0302/03/ip.00.html.
7. Starr, Finding Heroes, 90.
8. Cohrs, “Notes,” 6; interviews with Billy Ted Smith and Mark Allen.
9. Starr, Finding Heroes, 116.
10. Stepaniak, Loss of Signal, 23.
11. Starr, Finding Heroes, 91.
12. FEMA, “FEMA Updates Search, Find And Secure Activities For Columbia Emergency [4:00 p.m. Release],” news release HQ-03-035, February 4, 2003.
13. Cohrs, “Notes,” 6.
14. Pete Churlon, “Space Shuttle Columbia Tragedy Photo Gallery,” Beaumont Enterprise (Beaumont, TX), January 28, 2011, www.beaumontenterprise.com/photos/article/photo-548688; Pat Oden emails reprinted on www.hemphilltexas.com.
15. NASA, “Johnson Space Center Memorial Time Updated,” news release H03-042, February 3, 2003.
16. NASA, “NASA Provides Update About Columbia Investigation,” news release H03-051, February 4, 2003.
17. NASA, “Columbia Investigation.”
18. NASA, “Space Shuttle Accident Investigation Board Chair Tours Recovery Area,” news release H03-047, February 4, 2003.
19. Jan Amen email, February 4, 2003.
20. Interview with Jim Wetherbee; Stepaniak, Loss of Signal, 78.
21. Loss of Signal, 28–9.
22. FEMA, “FEMA Updates Search, Find And Secure Activities For Columbia Emergency [4:00 p.m. Release],” news release 3171-09, February 6, 2003.
23. James Hull email, February 7, 2003.
24. FEMA news release 3171-09.
25. “Today, Deputy NASA Administrator Frederick Gregory will render honors to the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The remains of the orbiter’s seven astronauts are scheduled to arrive in flag-draped caskets at Dover about 2 p.m. EST on board a C-141 Starlifter…. The Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs at the base will prepare the remains for return to the families. Ramon’s remains will be flown to his home in Israel for burial,” (NASA, “Deputy Administrator Meets Space Shuttle Columbia Astronauts’ Remains at Dover AFB,” news release H03-053, February 5, 2003, emphasis added).
26. Cohrs, “Notes,” 8.
27. Starr, Finding Heroes, 182.
28. Interviews with Jerry Ross and Jim Wetherbee; ESRI, “Space Shuttle Columbia Debris Recovery Enhanced with GIS,” Summer 2003, www.esri.com/news/arcnews/summer03articles/space-shuttle.html.
29. FEMA, “FEMA Updates Search, Find and Secure Activities for Columbia Investigation,” news release 3171-13, February 7, 2003.
30. Cohrs, “Notes,” 9.
31. “In Honor of the Columbia Shuttle Astronauts,” Lufkin, TX, First Baptist Church, February 8, 2003.
32. Pat Oden email, February 8, 2003.
33. This motto appears on a commemorative T-shirt that Belinda Gay was wearing in a photograph dated February 10, 2003.
34. Interviews with Greg Cohrs, Terry Lane, Tom Maddox.
35. Stepaniak, Loss of Signal, 28.
36. Cohrs, “Notes,” 13.
Chapter 8: Columbia Is Going Home in a Coffin
/> 1. FEMA, “FEMA Establishes Joint Information Center For Columbia Debris Search, Find, And Secure Mission At Lufkin Civic Center,” news release HQ-03-031, February 3, 2003.
2. FEMA, “FEMA Continues to Coordinate Actions to Assist State and Local Authorities in Search, Find and Secure Mission for Columbia Debris,” news release HQ-03-030, February 3, 2003.
3. FEMA, “FEMA Updates Search, Find and Secure Activities for Columbia Emergency [4:00 p.m. Release],” news release HQ-03-032, February 3, 2003.
4. US Navy, Salvage Report, 1–7.
5. Interviews with Dave Whittle and Larry Ostarly; Jim Wetherbee email to Jonathan Ward.
6. Pete Churlon, “Space Shuttle Columbia Tragedy Photo Gallery,” Beaumont Enterprise (Beaumont, TX), January 28, 2011, www.beaumontenterprise.com/photos/article/photo-548675.
7. Starr, Finding Heroes, 69–72.
8. Pat Adkins email to Jonathan Ward.
9. Pat Adkins email to Jonathan Ward. Jerry Ross said that he had advocated for having all crew personal effects sent directly to the Astronaut Office in Houston. However, instructions were that everything recovered would be processed through the reconstruction hangar at Kennedy first, and then crew items would be sent to Houston.
10. FEMA, “FEMA Updates Search, Find and Secure Activities for Columbia Emergency [11:00 a.m. Release],” news release HQ-03-034, February 4, 2003.
11. FEMA, “FEMA Updates Search, Find and Secure Activities for Columbia Emergency [4:00 p.m. Release],” news release HQ-03-035, February 4, 2003.
12. FEMA news release HQ-03-034.
13. Shafer and LeConey, “Legal Issues,” 61.
14. FEMA news release HQ-03-035.
15. Ener later achieved notoriety for entertaining NASA workers with his intricately fabricated tall tales of “one-armed space monkeys” that had escaped from Columbia and were sighted running loose in the woods of Sabine County. At one point, Ener even took out an ad in the local paper seeking to purchase monkey traps.
16. Starr, Finding Heroes, 69–72.
17. Crookshanks and Benzon, “CAIB Lessons Learned Video Interview.”
18. Wetherbee noted in an email to Jonathan Ward that in the crew search operations, each error was corrected expeditiously based on the extensive experience and professionalism of FBI special agent Mike Sutton. Using Sutton’s detailed and extensive system for logging the reported data, the crew remains leadership team in the Lufkin command center was able to rectify all errors.
19. ESRI, “Recovery Enhanced with GIS.” The GIS and the EPA databases tracked different information. FEMA’s new Shuttle Interagency Debris Database (SIDD) tracked all reports. EPA was only tracking the items that had actually been recovered. FEMA and EPA resolved the situation by agreeing that reports would first be entered into SIDD. Once it was clear that the report was for a new item rather than for one that had already been entered, the information would be sent to EPA’s database. After EPA had investigated the sighting and collected an item, the information then went back to SIDD. The incident commanders could therefore use the data in SIDD to target search operations.
20. Interviews with Dave Whittle, Ed Mango, Jim Wetherbee; ESRI, “Recovery Enhanced with GIS”; NASA Accident Investigation Team Final Report, 60.
21. Greg Cohrs email to Jonathan Ward. Cohrs noted that one day later in the search, a military ordnance disposal team “cleared” one item in the field as nonexplosive, which the search team interpreted as meaning “safe.” Cohrs said, “It was actually high-pressure, and we were at risk moving it by hand and vehicle to the collection center, as was pointed out when I delivered it. It was later depressurized on a shooting range. We made our personnel aware of that type of hazard.”
22. FEMA, “Substantial New Resources Committed to Expedite Search and Collection Effort for Columbia Material,” news release HQ-03-036, February 5, 2003; FEMA, “Columbia Material Collection Guidelines: Fact Sheet,” news release HQ-03-036a, February 5, 2003. Shuttle radios used classified, military-grade communications security technology to prevent unauthorized access.
23. FEMA, “Seven West Texas Counties Alerted of Possible Scattered Shuttle Material,” news release 3171-12, February 6, 2003.
24. Five Texas residents were charged with stealing debris from the shuttle. None ever served time for the thefts. Jeffrey Gettleman, “Loss of the Shuttle: Recovery Efforts; U.S. Charges 2 in Shuttle Debris Theft, Citing Need to ‘Make an Example,’” New York Times, February 6, 2003; Matt Lait, “2 Texans Charged With Stealing Wreckage,” Los Angeles Times, February 6, 2003, articles.latimes.com/2003/feb/06/nation/na-debris6; Jennifer Vose, “Punishments Vary for Debris Thieves,” Daily Sentinel (Nacogdoches, TX), August 2, 2003; “Officer Cleared in Shuttle Debris Theft,” Chicago Tribune, June 8, 2003, articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-06-08/news/0306080104_1_debris-stealing-shuttle; NASA Office of Inspector General press release, June 25, 2003.
25. Shafer and LeConey, “Legal Issues,” 64.
26. ESRI, “Recovery Enhanced with GIS.”
27. NASA’s Lamar Russell took on the task of supporting the searches in the western states. He published a diary of his experiences: The Silence and the Salvage (Mustang, OK: Tate Publishing, 2013).
28. Cohrs, “Notes,” 8.
29. Shafer and LeConey, “Legal Issues,” 60.
30. Cohrs, “Notes,” 8.
31. Gettleman, “Shuttle Debris Theft.”
32. Cohrs, “Notes,” 9.
33. NASA, “New Space Shuttle Columbia Images Released,” news release 03-212, June 24, 2003. Searchers eventually recovered nearly ten hours of video and ninety-two photographs with in-cabin, Earth observation, and experiment-related imagery. Of the 337 videotapes aboard Columbia, twenty-eight were found with some recoverable footage. Only twenty-one rolls of film out of the 137 rolls of film aboard the ship were found with recoverable photographs.
34. Robert Crippen, remarks at the KSC Columbia Memorial Service, February 7, 2003, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubYGeGU8jOo.
35. FEMA, “FEMA Updates Search, Find, and Secure Activities for Columbia Investigation,” news release 3171-13, February 7, 2003.
36. Pat Oden email, February 8, 2003.
37. Interview with Larry Ostarly.
38. Interview with Scott Thurston.
39. “NASA Studies Possibility of Space Junk Role,” Florida Today, February 6, 2003, 2S.
40. Mike Leinbach believes that perhaps the foam strike on the wing displaced an RCC panel on Columbia’s wing by compromising its support structure and pushing it back into the cavity behind the leading edge. From there, it could have eventually broken off due to thermal expansion and contraction as the shuttle moved back and forth between orbital day and night. He personally still finds this theory more plausible than the idea that the foam actually punched a hole through an RCC panel.
41. “NASA: Search for Crucial Pieces Coming Up Short,” Florida Today, February 6, 2003, 4S.
42. FEMA, “FEMA Updates Search, Find, and Secure Activities for Columbia Investigation,” news release 3171-14, February 8, 2003.
43. Shafer and LeConey. “Legal Issues,” 58–9. Phone calls and digital pictures emailed to the MIT closed most of these reports, as technicians were able to see that the material was clearly not related to the shuttle.
44. US Navy, Salvage Report, 1–8.
45. FEMA, “No Injuries Confirmed Because of Fallen Shuttle Materials; Citizens Urged to Avoid Contact With Unfamiliar Objects,” news release 3171-15, February 8, 2003.
46. Interview with Ed Mango.
47. FEMA, “FEMA Responds to Offers of Donated Goods and Services for Columbia Emergency,” news release 3171-16, February 9, 2003.
48. Interviews with Gerry Schumann, Don Eddings, Marsha Cooper.
49. Jeff Williams, interviewed by Connie Hodges.
50. Greg Cohrs added in an email to Jonathan Ward, “Shortly after the disaster, heavy rains repeatedly occurred, flooding the Attoyac River and Ayish Bayou, and all of the asso
ciated tributaries and watershed of Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend Reservoirs. This flooding undoubtedly washed some debris away and covered other debris with water, probably hiding the items for a long time, if not forever.”
51. US Navy, Salvage Report, 3–2.
52. US Navy, Salvage Report, 1–8.
53. William Harwood, “NASA Works to Eliminate Failure Scenarios,” story written for CBS News Space Place, reprinted in Spaceflight Now, March 9, 2003, www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030308scenarios/.
Chapter 9: Walkers, Divers, and Spotters
1. Interviews with Olen Bean, Greg Cohrs, and Mark Stanford. Cohrs added in an email to Jonathan Ward, “The Hemphill Management Team was filling individual resource orders for incident overhead personnel beginning late in the first week, toward the weekend. Also, during the second week, the Southern Area (US Forest Service, Region 8) Type 1 Incident Management ‘Blue’ Team had assumed incident management of the Nacogdoches Camp activities. I’m guessing that this occurred by Wednesday, Day 12, because Marcus [Beard] and I drove over to Nacogdoches to share our experiences with the Blue Team personnel in the event that it might be helpful to them. I’m not sure when the other camps (Palestine and Corsicana) had IMTs assume command, except the Great Basin Type 1 IMT in-briefed with us in Hemphill on Sunday, February 16, and assumed command of the Hemphill Camp operations on Monday, February 17.”
2. Keller, USDA Forest Service Role, 19.
3. A Type 1 “hotshot” crew is an elite, highly trained fire crew whose members always work together as a unit. A Type 2 crew is a regular fire crew made up of personnel who are available at a given time for an assignment.
4. NASA, Report CB-QMS-024, 9.
5. NASA, Report CB-QMS-024, 5.
Bringing Columbia Home Page 33
