Raising Cane
By Rob Perez
ASSOCIATED PRESS / 1986 / STARBULLETIN
Images of the explosion that destroyed the shuttle Challenger on Jan. 28, 1986, remain burned in the nation's memory.
Certain images you never forget. You can't. The day was too horrible, the sights too wrenching to erase from your memory. Tragedy revives horrific
images of 17 years agoNormally jaded journalists gathering around newsroom televisions, crying, sobbing, hugging each other.
People walking around town in a state of shock, shedding tears, mourning audibly, embracing strangers.
Cars stopping on the side of the road, drivers too overcome with emotion to continue.
The TV images playing again and again and again, showing a giant ball of smoke and flame that marred an otherwise clear blue sky.
As Hawaii awoke yesterday to news of the Columbia shuttle catastrophe, the tragic turn of events brought back vivid memories of the 1986 Challenger disaster that stunned the nation and took seven lives, including teacher Christa McAuliffe and Hawaii astronaut Ellison Onizuka.
At the time of the Challenger accident, I was a reporter at a Brevard County, Fla., newspaper that published near the Kennedy Space Center, the launch hub for the nation's manned space program.
The space program was to Brevard what the tourism industry is to Hawaii, intricately linked economically.
But there was an intense emotional bond as well. The space program and the so-called Space Coast were joined at the heart. The triumphs of each shuttle flight were seen as the triumphs of Brevard, especially for the thousands of local technicians, engineers, scientists and others who worked at or for the space center.
Above, the front page of Florida Today, the daily newspaper closest to the Kennedy Space Center, on the day after.
When the Challenger exploded 75 seconds after lift-off from a launch pad fewer than 15 miles from our newsroom, the emotional shock reverberated throughout Brevard, affecting even hard-nosed journalists accustomed to covering tragedy.
This wasn't your typical tragedy. It felt different. It tugged at the heart in a way you normally wouldn't expect when seven people perish.
But these were seven American astronauts, the first to die in flight. They were like family, especially to Brevard residents. We all felt the loss, we all grieved. It was like a piece of the Space Coast was lost forever.
If a disaster destroyed the University of Hawaii's Manoa campus while packed with students, you might get some sense of the magnitude of the blow delivered to Brevard's soul at 11:39 a.m., Jan. 28, 1986.
The day started like any other launch day. It seemed rather routine. By the time the Challenger was poised to lift off, NASA had successfully completed 24 other shuttles missions. This one attracted a little more attention only because of McAuliffe, the first teacher-astronaut.
Given the ho-hum nature of launches at the time, I didn't even try to join the reporters we had sent to the space center to cover the lift-off. I already had seen my share of launches up close.
Several minutes before Challenger was to take flight, though, I joined other newsroom colleagues and walked to a nearby river shoreline to view the launch. We brought our lunches and planned to spend a few minutes tracking the orbiter as it winged its way into space. It would be a welcomed break before the newsroom really started humming with activity.
As veteran launch watchers, however, we suspected that something was amiss when we saw the puff of white smoke high in the Florida sky. We had never seen that during previous launches. Then we caught a glimpse of something shiny falling from the smoke cloud. Another reporter figured the orbiter was trying to maneuver a return to the space center for an emergency landing. We rushed back to the newsroom.
What I saw when I got there hit me like a stiff punch to the gut.
Colleagues were gathered around televisions, watching the initial replays of the orbiter disintegrating in a huge ball of smoke and flames. Some were crying. Some were hugging. Some gasped in horror.
"Oh my God," one reporter uttered again and again.
Some just watched in silence, too stunned to say anything.
Within moments, dozens of editors and reporters scrambled to cover what was the biggest story ever to break in Brevard. We managed to make it through that day on nervous energy, extra doses of adrenaline and lots of fast food.
All these years later, what I remember most are the images.
People who couldn't stop crying as they spoke of the tragedy.
People who cringed in horror at the television replays yet refused to look away.
People whose faces betrayed a sadness that would hang over the area for weeks and months to come.
And now this.
Columbia isn't coming home, its crew lost to the heavens.
And now a new set of horrific images.
Star-Bulletin columnist Rob Perez writes on issues
and events affecting Hawaii. Fax 529-4750, or write to
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu 96813. He can also be reached
by e-mail at: rperez@starbulletin.com.
