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CNN Sunday Morning
Anniversary of Columbia Shuttle Tragedy
Aired February 01, 2004 - 07:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Today marks the first anniversary of the Columbia Shuttle tragedy. A tribute is planned tonight in Houston during the Super Bowl pre-game show.
CNN's space correspondent Miles O'Brien recalls covering what was supposed to be a routine landing and the dreadful realization that something was wrong.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Throughout the morning, I had been telling viewers that they had an excellent opportunity to see the space shuttle as it streaked back to earth.
Take a look at RX-9 -- good morning, Texas, take a look outside. The space shuttle Columbia coming back. You're watching landing is about 15 minutes away. I had heard right around the top of the hour, 9:00, that they had lost communication with the shuttle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Columbia Houston, we see your tire pressure messages. And we did not copy your last.
O'BRIEN: Obviously some troubling news here about the space shuttle Columbia as we haven't heard from it yet. The time of landing was supposed to be right about at this moment.
At 9:16, the expected landing time, when it should have been on the ground, it didn't arrive. And the thing about that is that there's no real middle ground in that. It's not like they diverted to Dallas.
I knew in an instant that it was a very ominous thing, and that the crew was most likely lost.
Here's what we're seeing that is a very significant in what you should look at, multiple trails, multiple indication of multiple targets there, as the space shuttle streaked over Dallas, Texas.
I remember sitting here, you know, watching the feed from NASA, listening to what they were talking about, about sealing their records and closing up their computers in such a way to preserve evidence.
Very ominous stuff. It just kind of -- there was a moment there where it almost just hit me in the gut. And I just had to stop, take a deep breath, and consciously tell myself you can't go here now. This is the time to do your job, step back for a moment, and just think about telling this story. And it was from that moment on, I stayed in that mindset, and stayed in this position for I think, I don't know, 15 hours or so right here in this spot. And it -- just watched this story unfold.
Well, it was only three or four days after launch that I became aware of the fact that engineers were looking at this problem of the foam striking the left wing of Columbia. The minute this happened, I immediately thought of it, just as everybody at NASA did. And within -- I believe it was within 30 to 45 minutes, were telling viewers about the foam striking the leading edge of the left wing. And I don't think anyone came close to reporting it that quickly.
Thinking about that moment, and you know, I've never been -- I have the tapes and I can't -- I really can't look at it. I did read the transcript at one point of what I said and what others said that day. And it was -- that was hard enough to do, but on that moment when I was on the phone with a friend of mine in Houston, public affairs officer, Kyle Herring, and we saw that tape from WFAA out of Dallas, and just these streaking meteors, six or seven streaks across the sky. And I knew that he knew what it was. He knew that I knew what it was. In an instant, we knew the crew had perished.
You know, I don't even know how I got through that, as I look back on that, thinking about what had happened there. It was concrete proof of what I had feared those few minutes before that tape came in. It was so sad to see that, to see the loss of life and the loss of dreams, and the loss of a -- the loss of I guess it's the spirit of an organization that you know would be demoralized. So that moment will be with me to my grave.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 1, 2004 - 07:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Today marks the first anniversary of the Columbia Shuttle tragedy. A tribute is planned tonight in Houston during the Super Bowl pre-game show.
CNN's space correspondent Miles O'Brien recalls covering what was supposed to be a routine landing and the dreadful realization that something was wrong.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Throughout the morning, I had been telling viewers that they had an excellent opportunity to see the space shuttle as it streaked back to earth.
Take a look at RX-9 -- good morning, Texas, take a look outside. The space shuttle Columbia coming back. You're watching landing is about 15 minutes away. I had heard right around the top of the hour, 9:00, that they had lost communication with the shuttle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Columbia Houston, we see your tire pressure messages. And we did not copy your last.
O'BRIEN: Obviously some troubling news here about the space shuttle Columbia as we haven't heard from it yet. The time of landing was supposed to be right about at this moment.
At 9:16, the expected landing time, when it should have been on the ground, it didn't arrive. And the thing about that is that there's no real middle ground in that. It's not like they diverted to Dallas.
I knew in an instant that it was a very ominous thing, and that the crew was most likely lost.
Here's what we're seeing that is a very significant in what you should look at, multiple trails, multiple indication of multiple targets there, as the space shuttle streaked over Dallas, Texas.
I remember sitting here, you know, watching the feed from NASA, listening to what they were talking about, about sealing their records and closing up their computers in such a way to preserve evidence.
Very ominous stuff. It just kind of -- there was a moment there where it almost just hit me in the gut. And I just had to stop, take a deep breath, and consciously tell myself you can't go here now. This is the time to do your job, step back for a moment, and just think about telling this story. And it was from that moment on, I stayed in that mindset, and stayed in this position for I think, I don't know, 15 hours or so right here in this spot. And it -- just watched this story unfold.
Well, it was only three or four days after launch that I became aware of the fact that engineers were looking at this problem of the foam striking the left wing of Columbia. The minute this happened, I immediately thought of it, just as everybody at NASA did. And within -- I believe it was within 30 to 45 minutes, were telling viewers about the foam striking the leading edge of the left wing. And I don't think anyone came close to reporting it that quickly.
Thinking about that moment, and you know, I've never been -- I have the tapes and I can't -- I really can't look at it. I did read the transcript at one point of what I said and what others said that day. And it was -- that was hard enough to do, but on that moment when I was on the phone with a friend of mine in Houston, public affairs officer, Kyle Herring, and we saw that tape from WFAA out of Dallas, and just these streaking meteors, six or seven streaks across the sky. And I knew that he knew what it was. He knew that I knew what it was. In an instant, we knew the crew had perished.
You know, I don't even know how I got through that, as I look back on that, thinking about what had happened there. It was concrete proof of what I had feared those few minutes before that tape came in. It was so sad to see that, to see the loss of life and the loss of dreams, and the loss of a -- the loss of I guess it's the spirit of an organization that you know would be demoralized. So that moment will be with me to my grave.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
