Columbia Widower: If Family Had Died In Plane Crash, History Would Have Been Changed

Six weeks before the shuttle Columbia launched from the Kennedy Space Center on its last, doomed mission, STS-107 astronaut Laurel Clark and her husband, NASA flight surgeon Jon, were flying along with their son, eight-year old Iain, in their Beechcraft Bonanza. They were headed from their home in Houston (TX) to Laurel's parents house in Albuquerque (NM) for Christmas when they ran into severe turbulence over West Texas. Laurel got airsick for the first time in her life. Jon tried to land the aircraft, but hit a strong wind shear on final. The B-36 was slammed onto the pavement, departed the runway and collided with an embankment. All three Clarks walked away from the accident unhurt, but the aircraft was completely destroyed.

Now, Jon wishes they'd been killed in that incident.

"I've lamented about that, wishing that we had all just died because then it would have changed the course of history. They wouldn't have launched," Clark said. Even though he and his family would have been killed in the West Texas accident, he says, the other six astronauts aboard Columbia would have survived because the accident would have scrubbed the mission.

A Young Boy's Premonition?

Between the runway incident and Columbia's final mission, Jon says Iain became afraid to fly -- and afraid to let his mother fly. At the Cape for the Columbia launch on January 16th, 2003, Iain cried. When he talked to his mother via radio link during the mission, he complained often about her leaving. Jon thinks his son's angst might have been some sort of premonition.

After the crash, after the initial shock, Jon, Iain and other crewmembers' families were flying back to Houston on a NASA jet. Jon says he was playing cards with his son to distract him when, as they passed over the East Texas debris field, Iain suddenly put down his cards and looked out the window. He waived.

"Iain, what are you doing?" Clark asked.

"I'm waving goodbye to Mommy," he said. "I felt her."

Dr. Jon Clark's training in psychiatry has helped him deal with the grief -- both his and Iain's. But Clark admits he's no child psychologist.

"I am not a child grief person," he says. "That's why instead of soccer games, we go to the psychologists in the afternoons. He's gone through that denial-bargaining phase where he's trying to invent a time machine to go back and warn her, or clone her."

Iain also asks his father, "Why didn't they listen to that engineer?" He's asking about a NASA flight engineer who was deeply worried about the possible damage to the shuttle's wing caused by that falling chunk of foam. But the engineer didn't express his concerns to the right people. His worries were never acted upon.

T hat question, says Clark, breaks his heart.

"Well, you know, honey," he gently tells Iain, "it's like at school when you don't listen to the teacher and she really knows that this is the thing you need to do to not get hurt, but you don't listen. That's kind of like what NASA is doing. They're the child that doesn't listen to somebody who might know better."

Dr. Clark still works for NASA. He's become a strong advocate for changing the safety culture that he says contributed to the Columbia accident. He says he nags Administrator O'Keefe about it every chance he gets. While the space agency chief is very deferential, Clark says, he continues to badger. 

"I... realize that actions speak louder than words and I don't want to hear about it. I want to see it."

FMI: www.nasa.gov