I was living in Daytona Beach, Florida. It was January 28TH, 1986, the day before my birthday, January 29TH. I was in class in college at 11:30 A.M. I asked the course instructor if we could go outside and watch the Challenger takeoff live.
Daytona Beach isn’t far from Cape Canaveral. You could see every shuttle launch from Daytona Beach easily. The night launches always lit the whole sky up. I was working on getting my Commercial Pilot License at the time.
The Challenger was scheduled to depart at 11:38 A.M. It was the coldest winter I had ever spent in Daytona Beach. The temperature was a bone chilling 22° F on January 28TH, 1986 at 11:30 A.M. I say bone chilling, because I lived in Florida. I did not even own sweat pants, just shorts.
So the course instructor said, “Yes, let’s all go out and watch the launch.” So we did. We were all standing outside jumping around trying to stay warm. The time was 11:37 A.M.
The night before the Challenger launch, me and my roommate were studying and watching the news. NASA had 10 launches of a shuttle from January 1985 until January 1986. The entire year of 1984, there were only five. We were discussing how close together the launches were to each other.
I was actually flying over Sanford, Florida at 6,000 feet when Atlantis launched on November 26TH, 1985 at 7:29 P.M., E.S.T. The launch lit up the whole state. It was incredible to see from the air at night. The launch looked like the sun was coming up from the sea.
So, I and my roommate were discussing how cold it would be for the launch on January 28TH of the Challenger. I actually made the comment that if NASA keeps pushing this hard and this fast, with this many launches, there was going to be an accident. Little did I know what I foretold that night.
January 28TH, 1986, 11:38 A.M. We were looking up into the tremendous blue and cold sky that morning. The Challenger came roaring up from the ground. It was breath taking. Seventy-three seconds later, we saw the unthinkable. But we did not know exactly what we saw. We could see the solid rocket boosters separate from the shuttle and start spinning.
My class mate said, “Looks like the crew jettisoned the boosters, and are going to return to Cape Canaveral.” I said, “Let’s go to the University Center and find a T.V. and see what is going on.” So we went and found T.V. and anxiously watched. I did not go back to class the rest of the day.
Later, the determination was made that the O ring seal on the right booster rocket had failed initiating the disaster. Little did I know on that fateful day in 1986, that a little over 11 years later, on a severely cold day (8°F) in March 1997 while flying over Tennessee, my right O ring (on the right brake) would fail while landing the aircraft I was flying, resulting in a very near fatal accident.
My thoughts and prayers are with the families, friends, and all the persons associated with the Challenger, 26 years and 20 days ago. I think about the crew and families often to this day.
"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards." – Author Unknown.
