Reporting on shuttle disaster, debris on beaches

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – I had Jan. 29, 1986, off and planned to do some shopping with a friend when the phone in my apartment rang. It was the newsroom asking if I was watching CNN and urging me to head in to the station as soon as possible.

Shuttle launches had become so routine, so mundane, that only CNN was carrying the launch of the Challenger live. When I turned on the TV, now several minutes after launch, everyone already knew something had gone terribly wrong.

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The image that I remember to this day was a shot of Christa McAuliffe's parents standing there at the Cape. I watched as they slowly began to realize that the shuttle carrying their daughter, chosen as the first Teacher in Space, had torn apart. Perhaps my own parents crossed my mind, as there on my coffee table was an application to be the first journalist in space.

My news director at the time, Mel Martin, and I had discussed the year away from the station training would require if I was chosen and he was totally supportive as he clearly relished adventuresome reporters and saw the potential publicity value for the station.

Who knew the tough decision on whether to go for it would be made for me by such an unthinkable tragedy as NASA immediately suspended the civilian in space program.

I am always astounded to think of how the Channel 4 news team pulled together during big events and stories; how each of us would drop everything and dive in to assist everyone else. The whole staff convened within an hour of the launch disaster and received assignments for the day.

I was assigned to cover the weather, not the high-profile shuttle disaster assignment I had envisioned while driving to the station. Although I didn't know it that day, while shooting video of bank sign thermometers registering freezing temps (do those ever exist in this day of smart phones?) and talking to nursery owners about caring for plants through the cold, I was covering what would eventually become a big part of the Challenger story as we learned that the cold weather played a major role in destroying the shuttle.

The next day's assignment became a tough one for all of us. Overnight, beach residents began reporting that shuttle pieces were washing up all along the Jacksonville coast. I personally reported on what appeared to be seat cushions and some kind of silver reflective coating in the sand at Jacksonville Beach. My colleagues dotted the coast, reporting on similar findings with several of us doing live reporting for national news outlets and our Post/Newsweek sister stations.

While the loss of the Challenger crew saddened the entire nation, as a Florida reporter, I believed the tragedy impacted the people of our state the most, as the flight originated here, the pieces fell back to earth here and the space program was our pride and joy.

Later in the year, I traveled with producer Nancy Shafran and videographer Don Flynn to Utah to cover the Ramses II exhibit at Brigham Young University just before the show moved from Salt Lake City to Jacksonville.

With the shuttle disaster so fresh and a congressional committee looking into the failure of parts manufactured in Provo, we traveled to the Morton Thiokol plant where the Challenger O-rings had been made and did several in-depth and very moving reports focusing on the people and town being blamed (and more terribly, blaming themselves) for the accident.

I am proud to say I was part of the news team that covered this major global event in such a meaningful way and mentioned our Challenger coverage and its impact on me when, unbelievably, I found myself in East Texas reporting on another shuttle tragedy 17 years later: the loss of the Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003.    

Nancy Rubin is now the senior director of communications for JAXPORT.