He received a call from his regional administrator, Ron Castleman, informing him that there had been a disaster involving the space shuttle. Castleman had few details to share, but he told Wells, “Be prepared to leave shortly.”
Half an hour later, he phoned Wells back again. “Start heading toward Barksdale Air Force Base. There will be more information to follow.”
President Bush had declared a state of emergency in Texas and Louisiana. He authorized FEMA to coordinate and direct all other federal agencies that might be responding to the accident. Castleman assigned Wells as FEMA’s leader on the scene.
During the six-hour drive southwest to Barksdale, Wells teleconferenced with Castleman, FEMA headquarters in Washington, NASA headquarters, and Tom Ridge, the head of the new Department of Homeland Security. Priorities for NASA and FEMA were clear. First and foremost, they were to ensure public safety. Recovery of the crew’s remains was the next priority, followed by supporting NASA’s accident investigation.12
Wells also received a call from Jack Colley at the Texas Department of Public Safety. Colley gave him the first detailed situational awareness of the conditions on the ground in Texas, because he had been in contact with the National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety people on the scene. Colley’s two biggest fears were that this was somehow linked to a terrorist attack, and that the hazardous materials on the shuttle could endanger public safety.
—
Astronauts Mark Kelly and “Ray J” Johnson arrived at Nacogdoches airport at midmorning in their coast guard helicopter. They learned that debris had been coming down all around the area, and that some had even hit the ground at the airport.
The astronauts walked to a hangar to examine some of the pieces that had been collected. Kelly instantly recognized a fuel tank from the shuttle’s maneuvering engines. Alarmed, he told the workers in the hangar not to go near the tank, as it might be contaminated by highly toxic propellants.
Kelly and Johnson boarded a police car to ride around town and assess the situation. Wreckage from the shuttle appeared to be strewn everywhere—even along the roadway. Kelly wondered: How could you even begin to get control of this situation?
The astronauts returned to the car after examining a piece of debris on the roadside. One of the police officers said, “We’re getting reports that some of the crew might have come down near Hemphill.” Kelly and Johnson knew that they needed to get there as quickly as possible. They returned to the airport and boarded their helicopter, directing the pilot to take them to Hemphill, sixty miles to the southeast.
—
Administrator Sean O’Keefe and Associate Administrator Bill Readdy met with Columbia’s families in the Kennedy Space Center astronaut quarters at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time. O’Keefe told the families that President Bush wished to speak with them by conference call. The president conveyed his deepest personal regrets and offered his full and immediate support for whatever actions needed to be taken.
The group spent the next ninety minutes working through details of the next steps. During the conversation, one of the spouses said the most important thing NASA could do was find out what happened, fix it, and rededicate the agency with everything possible to achieve the exploration goals that the crew gave their lives for. O’Keefe was heartened by their encouragement at such a dark time.
Accident Plus Three Hours
Astronaut Dom Gorie made calls to find out if any reconnaissance aircraft were available that could aid in the search for Columbia and her crew. He learned that the Drug Enforcement Administration had a Fairchild C-26 airplane stationed at Ellington Field. The C-26 was equipped with forward-looking infrared equipment. If any large pieces of still-warm debris from the shuttle were on the ground, the sensors might be able to detect them.13
Gorie secured the use of the plane and flew with them to direct the airborne search. No shuttle material was found during their three-hour flight. Disappointingly, the infrared imaging system could not resolve any small pieces of debris on the ground, because large areas of still-smoldering tree stumps from recent controlled burns looked surprisingly like a debris field of warm objects to the infrared sensors.
—
Dave King drove to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville shortly after Bill Readdy asked him to head NASA’s overall recovery effort. A group briefed him on the current situation. Reports of possible debris sightings were coming in from California to Florida.
King asked that Marshall’s plane be readied to take him to the accident scene. He phoned his security team and his information technology department and asked that they designate personnel to accompany him. Their departure time would be “as soon as the pilots are ready.”
King drove to Huntsville airport to meet with his team. They quickly discussed what they needed to accomplish once they arrived at their destination—wherever that would be. Several options were being considered in East Texas. The decision would be made while King was en route from Huntsville toward Texas.
Their plane took off at about 11:30 a.m. Central Time and headed southwest. While the plane was in the air, King learned that FEMA was going to set up its disaster field office in Lufkin, Texas. King told the pilot to set course for Lufkin.
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Mark Kelly’s coast guard helicopter set down on Hemphill high school’s football field. Kelly went into the school gym, where a basketball game was in progress. He found a policeman and asked to be taken to the town’s incident command center. The policeman escorted him to the firehouse, about one-quarter mile south. Kelly introduced himself to the FBI’s Terry Lane, who had also just arrived in town.
About three hours after the accident, a call had come in regarding a sighting of something unusual on Beckcom Road, a few miles southwest of town. A jogger had seen what he first thought to be the body of a deer or wild boar near the roadway.
Kelly and Lane rode with Sheriff Maddox to the site. They met Tommy Scales from the Department of Public Safety, who had just come from another debris scene nearby.
They encountered what was clearly the remains of one of Columbia’s crew.14 Maddox radioed John “Squeaky” Starr, the local funeral director, to come to the scene to assist in the recovery. Kelly also requested that a clergyman come to the site to perform a service before the remains were moved or photographed. While they were waiting, another state trooper covered the crew member with his raincoat.
“Brother Fred” Raney, the pastor at Hemphill’s First Baptist Church, had just returned to the firehouse to report that he had seen partial remains of a Columbia crew member in a pasture. Raney drove out to join the officials gathered at the Beckcom Road site. He conducted a short memorial service for the fallen astronaut.
By now, the news media had arrived in the area and were monitoring police radio frequencies. They intercepted the call about the Beckcom Road remains, and a news helicopter full of reporters flew over the scene, trying to get video of the recovery on the ground. They were low enough, and their motion deliberate enough, that it was clear to the people on the ground that the pilot was trying to use the helicopter’s rotor wash to blow the raincoat from the crew member’s remains. Lane and two troopers stood on the corners of the coat to keep it in place. One of the troopers used “an emphatic gesture” to make it clear to the pilot that the helicopter had to leave the area immediately.
Lane later said, “I don’t know if a helicopter has ever been shot down by a DPS pistol, but they were very close to that happening.”
The troopers noted and reported the tail number of the helicopter. Shortly thereafter, the FAA ordered a temporary flight restriction over all of East Texas.
After the remains were placed in a hearse, Kelly, Lane, and Raney moved on to a house near Bronson, where partial remains of another crew member had been reported. The media had intercepted those radio calls, too, and several reporters were on the scene when the officials arrived. From that point forward, the command team began using code words and decoy vehicles
whenever crew remains were being investigated.
Lane was a veteran of the FBI’s response to many horrific accidents, including the TWA 800 crash and the World Trade Center attacks. His orders in East Texas were to work as part of a team of four individuals: himself, a forensic anthropologist, a pathologist from El Paso, and a Texas Ranger. Whenever a call came saying, “We think we’ve found something,” the team’s role was to ascertain how likely it was that the finding actually was human remains. The team deployed all necessary resources to make a recovery of any remains that were probably or likely to be human.
Making the first two crew remains recoveries in the space of a few hours set the tone and protocol for subsequent recoveries. From that point forward, whenever possible crew remains were located, the FBI would be called to the scene immediately. An astronaut accompanied Lane and his team to investigate every sighting, without exception.
A Texas Ranger or DPS officer, Brother Fred, and a funeral director (either Squeaky Starr or his son Byron) would meet the FBI evidence recovery team and astronaut at the site. Once the group was assembled, the scene was turned over to the astronaut to step forward and preside over the recovery of his or her colleague. When the astronaut was ready, he or she would signal Brother Fred to approach, who then performed a brief service offering a few words on the heroic sacrifice of the crew member, reading certain verses from Scripture, and then saying a prayer. The astronaut then released control of the scene to the FBI evidence team. The remains were placed in a body bag and taken to a hearse. Squeaky or Byron Starr would then transport the crew member’s remains to a waiting doctor.
Brother Fred learned that Columbia’s commander Rick Husband had recited Joshua 1:9 to his crew as they suited up before their flight: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Brother Fred incorporated that verse into all of his services in the field. He and Kelly also researched appropriate words to say for Hindi and Hebrew services. All of the services delivered in the field after the first day included Christian, Hebrew, and Hindi prayers.
Lane was deeply moved by the way the astronauts handled the recoveries. He knew how horribly difficult it must have been for them to see their friends and colleagues in that condition. It was a duty far outside the scope of what any astronaut would normally be asked to perform. The strength of the astronauts’ religious convictions also surprised Lane at first. Then he realized that if these people “strap a million pounds of dynamite to their butts for someone else to light, they’d better have mighty deep faith.”
Accident Plus Three Hours Thirty Minutes
Greg Cohrs was still at his home near Hemphill when he received a call from district ranger Marcus Beard, directing him to report to the US Forest Service office, don his flight suit, and begin searching the area in a government-contracted helicopter. Cohrs arrived at the office only to learn that the helicopter was grounded because airspace over the entire area had just been restricted. Beard then sent Cohrs to the Hemphill fire station to attempt to establish joint command of the incident in Sabine County with Sheriff Maddox.15
The firehouse was a maelstrom of activity. Maddox was too busy to talk. Cohrs found Billy Ted Smith—the co-incident commander with Maddox—and offered the services and resources of the US Forest Service, which administers one-third of the land in Sabine County. Cohrs and his colleagues knew the deep woods and terrain as well as anyone. They were experienced in search and rescue methods, and they had heavy equipment to help clear paths into the woods.
Reports and unconfirmed rumors were coming in from other locations. One said that the Department of Defense would shortly take over the search-and-recovery operations. Another said that the army was being deployed. There might be hazardous or radioactive material in the field. There was classified material on the shuttle. A storage tank on the ground in San Augustine County was venting yellowish gas. Solid intelligence was still hard to come by. What was clear was that all shuttle materials, except personal items and avionics, were to be protected and left in place for subsequent retrieval. Crew remains needed to be recovered immediately.
Cohrs immediately began to organize search efforts in Sabine County. He divided his Forest Service personnel into two-person teams and began to assign priorities to investigate the reported findings. He assigned highest priority to sightings of possible crew remains. He instructed the teams to note the GPS coordinates of debris finds and log them for later recovery.
Meanwhile, representatives of various state and local agencies, who had been ordered by their leaders to help out in Sabine County, began to overrun Hemphill’s town center. Each agency tried to stake out space in the firehouse. Other volunteers were arriving faster than they could be handled.
Media trucks were descending on the town, occupying valuable space along roads that would be needed by emergency response teams. Sabine County Judge Leath ordered the area around the courthouse to be cordoned off.
Sheriff Maddox called Roger Gay, commander of Hemphill’s VFW Post, which was four miles from the town center. “Roger, you need to open up the VFW hall. We need to use it as a staging area.”
Gay replied, “No problem.”
Maddox added, “Could you come up with some sandwiches and coffee? Maybe make some tea?”
Gay again replied, “No problem. We’ll get it going.”
Gay went to the VFW hall and started making sandwiches. At lunchtime, a few people came in for food. Then a few more arrived, and then a few more—and then dozens more.
Realizing that he would quickly be overwhelmed, Roger phoned his wife Belinda, who was on her way to a baby shower in Nacogdoches. He told her he needed her help as head of the VFW Ladies’ Auxiliary. She made a U-turn and sped to the VFW hall. They began making calls, asking people to prepare food and bring it to the VFW hall.
Accident Plus Four Hours
NASA’s Mission Management Team held a second meeting at JSC to report status and update plans. The Department of Defense, the Southeast Air Defense Sector, and the National Transportation Safety Board were tied in and offered their support. FEMA and the coast guard were online. The Department of Homeland Security was involved, along with the State Department. The Rapid Response Team and I teleconferenced in from Kennedy.
Reports indicated that debris was being found from Tyler, Texas, to Louisiana. No signals from the emergency beacons on the crew’s suits had been detected. It was clear there was no hope of finding the crew alive. The astronaut office reported on how the crew’s families were being cared for. Discussions began about a memorial service.
My Rapid Response Team was scheduled to board an air force cargo plane bound for Barksdale Air Force Base at about four o’clock that afternoon. The plane could carry ninety-six passengers. Once we arrived, we would report to Dave Whittle to support his Mishap Investigation Team. Whittle would be reporting to Dave King.
Accident Plus Five Hours
In the early afternoon, Jim Wetherbee and several other astronauts began driving north from Houston to Lufkin. Along the way, they received reports of shuttle equipment that had been found on the ground.
Wetherbee was directed to one site to check out a sighting of particular importance. There he saw the charred and damaged remnants of a shuttle astronaut’s helmet in a field. He and his team made sure that the scene was secured so that the equipment would be untouched until it could be recovered properly. The helmet was a harsh reminder of his seven friends on board Columbia and what they must have gone through when their vehicle came apart.
Meanwhile, the majority of Dave Whittle’s Mishap Investigation Team had assembled in Building 30 at Johnson Space Center. The team’s two designated flight surgeons would normally have been present, but they were at Kennedy with the crew’s families. In their place, NASA flight surgeon Philip Stepaniak, MD, and Michael Chandler of Wyle Laboratories were assigned as the medical representatives to the MIT. They would be res
ponsible for transferring any recovered crew’s remains to the Armed Services Institute of Pathology at Dover AFB for autopsy.
At the first official meeting of his team, Whittle announced that he and select members of the MIT would be deploying to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana that afternoon to set up a strategic command center. Whittle learned that FEMA was also being activated and would be setting up their command center in Lufkin because of the town’s proximity to the debris field. Being situated in Lufkin facilitated FEMA’s ability to get resources to the local communities who needed help. Whittle decided to situate leaders from his NASA team at both Barksdale and Lufkin.
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Recovered shuttle debris was already appearing for sale on eBay. Jeff Millslagle asked the Houston FBI office to shut down those listings immediately. Shuttle material was government property, and unauthorized possession was a federal crime.
Dave King’s plane from Huntsville landed at the Angelina County Airport outside Lufkin. The sheriff, an FBI special agent, and a Secret Service agent met him and gave him a brief situation report.
King arrived at the FBI office shortly after one o’clock. Jeff Millslagle took him aside and found him to be still somewhat in disbelief about the situation. “We never anticipated this happening on reentry,” King told him. “The shuttle’s just a flying brick.”
King needed to start making decisions immediately about recovery operations. He had never run a recovery operation like this before. But then again, nobody had ever done anything like this.
Millslagle asked what help NASA needed from the FBI. King explained that the aftermath of the Challenger disaster had been a logistical mess. King did not want a repeat of that nightmare.
“I’d like the FBI crime scene folks to work along with locals and astronauts, when we start searching for human remains and some of the sensitive equipment,” he said, “to preserve those remains and items. No pictures. Nothing like that. We don’t need it on the news. But we have to do it properly so that we can get the crew’s remains back, if there are any.”
Bringing Columbia Home Page 8