Viewed from California

NASA investigators probing the disintegration of the shuttle Challenger interviewed an Australian astronomer working in California over the weekend, saying he may have significant insight into the tragedy.

Anthony Beasley was monitoring the shuttle's decent from an observatory near Los Angeles Saturday when he claims to have seen several thermal tiles apparenlty trailing from Columbia.

"I started to wonder whether or not things were happening how they should."

Shuttle Mission Director Ron Dittemore told reporters at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Sunday NASA investigators interviewed Beasley after they heard him tell his story to ABC-TV Newsman Peter Jennings Saturday. After obtaining a written statement, invesigators turned the information over to Houston, where Dittemore said it would be compared to the timeline of known events in what might prove to be a crucial study.

"After the first few flashes I thought to myself that I knew the shuttle lost tiles as it re-entered and quite possibly that was what was going on," Beasley said on ABC. "I think that after the particularly bright event I started to wonder whether or not things were happening how they should."

Beasley said one especially bright flash from the Columbia caught his eye as the orbiter streaked across the Western United States. "I think that after the particularly bright event I started to wonder whether or not things were happening how they should."

Former NASA engineer, Jim Oberg, described Beasley's eyewitness report as "an extraordinary account".
"If the left wing is losing tiles you then not only have overheating in that wing but you have extra drag and it's like flying along and having your wing run into something," Oberg said.
"It could violently turn, twist the nose of the ship to the left and that would be it. That would be the point where it would be torn apart."

FMI: www.nasa.gov