On Columbia's Flight Deck

Hundreds of videotapes were found after the accident. Most were damaged beyond repair or had been heated enough to demagnetize the tape. The first viewable video showed the activities on Columbia's flight deck during reentry. Laurel Clark used a camcorder to shoot the ordinary activities which happen during every shuttle reentry. There is nothing out of the ordinary in this video and it ends at 8:47 a.m. EST, several minutes before things went wrong.

Clark is sitting in the aft right seat of the flight deck with KC to her left, McCool in front of her, and Husband diagonally across the crew cabin. The camera starts off with McCool and then he hands it to Clark. At points Clark points the camera towards the other crewmembers and up through the overhead windows.

The astronauts are talking and joking with each other and clearly in high spirits.

Had the mission proceeded normally Clark would have continued to shoot the video through Columbia's landing. At the first sign of trouble she would have shut off the camcorder and put it away in a stowage bag and taken out the emergency checklists.

NASA released the video on February 28th.

Still frames from the video.


Rick Husband and Willie McCool
K.C. looks at the camera

Laurel turns the camera to shoot herself
A thruster firing through an overhead window

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