Michael Leinbach - Bringing Columbia Home - The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew

The medical team and the recovery leaders in Lufkin debated about the appropriate time to transfer the crew’s remains to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Dover Air Force Base. On one hand, consideration for the grieving family members argued in favor of waiting to move all seven transfer cases at one time. On the other hand, it was imperative to get the remains recovered so far to Dover as quickly as possible, so more thorough forensic analyses could be performed to determine the causes of death. And until analyses of dental records and DNA could be completed, it was unclear just how much of each crew member’s remains had been recovered.

Wetherbee and Dr. Stepaniak jointly decided to send all seven of the caskets together on a flight to Dover the next day. They made the decision to ease the suffering of the families, the NASA family, and the public. [21] Loss of Signal , 28–9.

At the end of the day’s operations, the search team leaders debriefed with some of the command team members in Lufkin. They provided feedback on how search techniques were working and whether an area was “cold”—without any significant material being found. Armed with this feedback and the GPS positions of the material and remains being recovered, the command team planned the next day’s searches.

On Wednesday, February 5, at the eight o’clock morning phone call, FEMA’s Scott Wells reported that the Texas Army National Guard, coast guard dive teams, and six FBI canine teams were engaged in the search efforts. They were concentrating on a “hot spot”—a ten-mile by two-mile area—near Bronson and Hemphill. Wells noted that all federal agencies on the scene were at peak manning. Now the teams just had to “do the work.”

The search teams continued to grow. Now five days after the accident, there were eight hundred National Guard troops on duty in the search corridor, most of them working on crew remains search and recovery. The Department of Public Safety had 353 personnel in the field, and there were 140 US Forest Service workers on site. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had twenty-three teams deployed, and EPA had 370 people deployed. Sixty EPA teams had collected more than 1,100 bags of debris. [22] FEMA, “FEMA Updates Search, Find And Secure Activities For Columbia Emergency [4:00 p.m. Release],” news release 3171-09, February 6, 2003. The Texas Forest Service had 140 employees scattered throughout East Texas and on duty at Stephen F. Austin State University to provide support to the recovery. [23] James Hull email, February 7, 2003. Louisiana had 174 searchers in the field. [24] FEMA news release 3171-09.

In Sabine County, the same search groups who had worked the previous day now combed the area stretching from south of Hemphill to US 96 near Bronson.

Hemphill’s Dwight Riley was participating as a volunteer searcher. He was becoming obsessed with the search in a very personal way, curious about the shuttle and its astronauts and how everything had come to rest in his county. Every find was seductive, something that made him empathize with the crew and the shuttle.

One day Riley found a “Lift-the-Dot” type of fastener on the ground. It made him wonder: Where did that come from? Was that from a harness? Was it off a uniform? Was it used to fasten something to a wall? On another day’s search, he found a piece of curved glass, “smoky” on one side, which appeared to have an inspection seal on it. Again, he wondered where on the shuttle it had come from and why it was lying here so peacefully in front of him. It was difficult to fathom that each little piece had been in space, had gone through the breakup of Columbia forty miles up, flown across Texas, and then fallen to Earth in his county. Even though his “old bones were dog tired” every evening, and he was happy to have a hot shower at the end of a grueling day, each morning he was eager to don his Carhartt overalls and get back out in the rain to help with the search.

Mike Alexander, another local volunteer, felt the same way. Painful arthritis made him hesitant to search the first few days, and the going was tough. However, he found the experience so rewarding and compelling that he told his wife that he just could not stay home.

The US Forest Service team leaders appreciated the local knowledge, determination, and tenacity of these older volunteers. Jamie Sowell described Riley as “tough as a boot” and “a godsend”—someone he could depend on to help the newcomers.

In the fire hall, co-incident commander Billy Ted Smith felt that he was on borrowed time. As an employee of ExxonMobil in Beaumont, Texas, he had received permission to take off several days to work the incident command for the shuttle recovery. Now, he thought he needed to turn over the responsibility for the operation to someone else so that he could return to his day job. A congressman visiting the site told Smith that he was too valuable to the operation to leave. A few phone calls garnered Smith permission to stay in Hemphill as long as he was needed. He ended up being on duty in the command center for twenty-seven days.

With almost no advance notice and little time to prepare, Greg Cohrs and Marcus Beard were asked to step in front of the cameras and brief the national media at five o’clock. Reporters asked Cohrs several times about crew remains, but NASA had instructed him not to discuss anything about the crew. Cohrs and the incident commanders knew that the bodies of two of the crew members had not yet been recovered, seemingly contradicting NASA’s press release that seven flag-draped caskets containing the remains of Columbia ’s crew members were arriving at Dover that afternoon. [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). The NASA release was essentially factual—they had recovered partial remains of all seven crew members—but the bodies of two of them had not been located. Cohrs suspected that the media felt things did not quite add up, because they were aware of the continuing activity around the command post and the county.

After the news conference, four Native American fire crews arrived in town. Cohrs planned to deploy these additional eighty searchers the next day. Wildland fire crews like these, contracted by the US Forest Service, would become the backbone of the recovery effort within two weeks.

Thursday, February 6, was a miserable day in Sabine County. Temperatures ranged from 40°F to 44°F, with sleet and about an inch of rain. Swollen creeks, some chest deep, were difficult for searchers to cross. Sixty-four agencies were at work in the county, with about 850 people involved in search and support. Searchers received yellow rain slickers to wear over their heavier clothes. Briars and nearly impenetrable thickets shredded the thin material within minutes.

Greg Cohrs was concerned about the safety of the searchers, the risk of hypothermia or exposure, and the dangers of crossing rain-swollen creeks. But he had to find the remaining crew. Time was running out. The longer the bodies remained in the field, the greater the likelihood of forensic evidence being lost.