The Columbia Accident Investigation Board suffered communications failures before breaking up outside a meeting room at NASA Headquarters.

NASA investigation board bursts into flames

"Members of the investigation board had reported experiencing intermittent communications failures earlier in the meeting," NASA spokesperson Guy Courtland told reporters following the tragedy. "At that point the decision was made to halt forward movement until communications were running adequately. After lunch, the crew attempted to reenter the meeting and moments later were seen breaking up outside their NASA Headquarters conference room. It was truly a horrific sight."

While many questions remain as to the cause of the explosion, NASA officials said that poor ventilation in the CAIB's meeting room combined with the unseasonably hot and humid weather conditions may have caused the board to burst into flames.

"We've recovered the room's thermostat control unit, which indicates that the temperature in the meeting room approached one hundred and four degrees right before the board broke up," said Courtland. "This would indicate a failure in the ventilation system, as that temperature far exceeds the room's normal operating parameters."

The disaster comes only weeks after the CAIB released its final report regarding the Feb. 1 NASA accident in which the space shuttle Columbia burst into flames reentering the Earth's atmosphere. At the time of the disaster, the investigative board was only hours away from completing the final report's amendments and convening until further notice. At time of print, NASA officials refused to speculate on the chances that any of the board's members managed to survive.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board Accident Investigation Board inspects the recovered remains of the board's meeting room conference table.

"After being delayed by communications problems this morning, the board knew that they would need to push their agenda or they would risk having to come in over the weekend to finish up the amendments," said Courtland. "The amendments were going to be due Monday morning, and [CAIB Chairman] Admiral [Hal] Gehmen said there was no way in hell he was canceling his weekend [sailing trip], so he was really pushing hard for the team to complete the mission. With the board under so much stress, that there was an eruption almost isn't that much of a surprise."

NASA officials were quick to dispatch teams to search arm-to-arm across downtown Washington for remains of the CAIB, in hopes that recovered items may lead to more information about the events that led up to the explosion.

"The truth is that we won't know for sure what caused the accident until all of the recovered evidence is thoroughly analyzed," said Courtland. "But rest assured, just as the CAIB exhaustively investigated the Columbia disaster, NASA will quickly appoint an investigative board to find out what caused the CAIB disaster. NASA has already tentatively named the team the Columbia Accident Investigation Board Accident Investigation Board."

October 2003