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Images Clue Viewers to Shuttle's Fate
Images of Shuttle in Sky Tell Television Viewers What Happened Before Any Official Word
The Associated Press
NEW YORK Feb. 2 —
The arresting image of a white streak flashing across the sky then breaking into several pieces repeated over and over told television viewers what happened to the space shuttle Columbia before any official government word.
Broadcast and cable news networks covered the story full time on Saturday, although two networks were caught with their principal anchors far from their desks.
The video wasn't as spectacular, but it immediately evoked memory of the space shuttle Challenger's explosion shortly after takeoff in 1986.
"It is a very eerie case of deja vu for all of us," said Gary Tuchman, CNN correspondent.
That there were pictures at all this time was a combination of luck and routine journalistic preparedness.
At WFAA-TV in Dallas, a cameraperson is assigned whenever a shuttle streaks by on its way to a planned landing, both because they're interesting pictures and to bear witness in case something goes terribly wrong, said photographer Timb Hamilton.
John Pronk had that assignment on Saturday morning and the network aired his video live. They were rerun repeatedly both nationally and locally when it was apparent something was wrong.
Hamilton, an amateur astronomer and Pronk's colleague, took his video camera to his front yard in Mesquite, Texas, to watch the same thing. He had seen nighttime shuttle fly-bys but none during the day. While following it in his viewfinder, he noted a large flash and what appeared to be debris flying away.
"I knew something was wrong," he said, "but first I tried to tell myself because it was daytime it looked different. But after a few seconds, my wife and I knew something was going on."
James Lenamon, a cameraman for KXAS-TV in Dallas, was assigned to look for the shuttle in between other assignments. It appeared in the sky about three minutes before he was expecting it.
He noticed the flashes and contrails that appeared to indicate something flying away from the shuttle, but he had no idea this was out of the ordinary. He filed his videotape with the station and moved on to his next assignment videotaping parents waiting in line at a private school.
It was only when he saw his pictures on NBC's special report that he realized what he had shot. "I was very emotional," he said.
Jeff Foreman, an engineer with a physics degree, told CBS News he was taking video and realized quickly something had gone awry.
"When multiple pieces started coming off, I thought that it was highly unusual, that it shouldn't be happening," he said. His suspicions were confirmed when he heard seven or eight sonic booms; during typical fly-bys he hears only two.
The networks were all on the story by 10 a.m. EST. CBS, with Dan Rather in the anchor chair by 10:30 a.m., was the most nimble in response. ABC which, unlike its rivals is without a Saturday morning newscast, and with Peter Jennings hours away was at an initial disadvantage. He arrived at 12:20 p.m.
NBC's Tom Brokaw was on vacation on Saturday, causing the network to replace him with his eventual successor as primary anchor, Brian Williams. Brokaw was cutting short his break to join the coverage later.
CNN had an advantage with Miles O'Brien, its NASA reporter, already in the studio as a Saturday morning host.
Traffic surged at online news sites as people looked to the Internet for details.
"Our traffic spike hit its peak at 10:30 a.m. (EST) at more than nine times what we usually get as our peak on a weekend day and more than twice what we usually see as our peak on our average weekday," said Mitch Gelman, executive producer for CNN.com. He said there were no problems handling the increased traffic.
In the first few hours, television newscasters had little to go on, although all sought quickly to downplay concerns that terrorism was involved.
"In a time like this, all of us are in complete awe," Fox News Channel's Tony Snow said. "We have no idea what's going on."
In the end, the pictures told the story.
photo credit and caption:
In this image from television, contrails from what appears to be the space shuttle Columbia can be seen streaking across the sky over Texas, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2003. Columbia apparently disintegrated in flames minutes before it was to land in Florida. (AP Photo/WFAA-TV via APTN)
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Copyright © 2002 ABC News Internet Ventures.
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