Challenger Encounters...

January 28, 1986

I will never forget that date nor forget where I was and what I was doing at the exact moment the Shuttle Challenger exploded in mid-air.

I was in the U.S. Coast Guard on temporary assignment to an Air Station in Puerto Rico. That particular day I just happen to be on duty in the radio room. I was busy maintaining communications with several Coast Guard aircraft that were airborne that day. I remember a clearly a very young enlisted member beating on the radio room door. As I opened the door he began yelling for me to turn on the television because the Shuttle had just blown up.

I had encountered this particular young man before and I had assumed he was trying to play a joke on me until I saw the look in his eyes. I quickly walked over to the television and turned it on and much to my shock, there was the now famous footage of Challenger exploding. My stomach began to quickly get nauseous. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing.

The network kept playing the footage over and over. Every time it repeated I found myself hoping, wishing, that somehow I'd see the Challenger rising up out of the clouds and vapor and progress onward toward outer space but alas it never happened.

A few minutes later I was given an order to advise our airborne flight crews of the event and to recall our aircraft back to the base.

The mood was very somber that afternoon.

My brother Tony, who was also on active duty in the Coast Guard at the time had the unpleasant duty of participating in the recovery operations of the shuttle debris, it was a lengthy endeavor.

My "connection" to Shuttle Challenger was established way before it ever exploded. Just two years prior, my son Christopher and I were able to be within a very close proximity of the spaceship. Each time the Shuttle returned from space it would land out west somewhere and it would be piggybacked on top of a 747 jet and transported back to Cape Canaveral on the Atlantic side of Florida.

It just so happens that my family and I were staying with relatives right outside the gates of Eglin Air Force Base in northwest Florida when the 747 carrying the Challenger arrived for a brief pit stop. My father-in-law at the time was a photographer for the military and had easy access to the flight line on the base so that he could take some pictures. He graciously invited Chris and I to join him. I think I was just as excited as my little boy was that day!

I can remember watching in awe as the 747 made its approach to the runway and began to descend. It just didn't seem natural for a humongous aircraft like the Challenger to be sitting ON TOP of a 747 Jumbo Jet. I can remember thinking that the combination of the two aircraft looked like a big lumbering elephant to me.

I pretty much think everyone was a little nervous as the 747 landed heavily on the runway and I can tell you I think most folks there that day let out a deep sigh of relief as it finally came to a stop.