AIN Blog: 15 Years Later, Columbia Disaster Revisited

An authoritative new book on the loss of the space shuttle in 2003, focuses on the recovery of the crew and the debris.

This model was built to honor the crew of the space shuttle Columbia soon after the disaster in February, 2003. A decade-and-a-half later, those memories were revived with the publication of a new book detailing inside information on the accident and the recovery effort.

By Curt Epstein • Business Aviation Services Editor

February 20, 2018

On a shelf in my office sits a model of the space shuttle Columbia. I built it 15 years ago, after it became the second of the orbiters to be lost in service. I was skiing on that cold Saturday morning in February 2003. When I took a break and came into the base lodge, I saw people glued to the televisions around the bar area. As I asked what happened, I was quickly informed that we had lost another shuttle, 17 years after the Challenger was destroyed on takeoff. This time, Columbia was torn apart at the end of her voyage, just 16 minutes from landing at her home base at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.

In conjunction with the 15th anniversary, Michael Leinbach, the former launch director of the space shuttle program at KSC, has released a new book, Bringing Columbia Home: The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew, that details the disaster and its aftermath. In it, he describes the emptiness he felt as he and the shuttle reception crew and family members waited near the runway, watching the arrival clock tick down and listening in vain for the sonic booms, which had heralded every previous shuttle arrival. For Leinbach, that was his first indication that something had gone very wrong.

The rest of this article continues for AIN Members with the full report, analysis and background. The rest of this article continues for AIN Members with the full report, analysis and background. The rest of this article continues for AIN Members with the full report, analysis and background. The rest of this article continues for AIN Members with the full report, analysis and background. The rest of this article continues for AIN Members with the full report, analysis and background.

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Curt Epstein

Business Aviation Services Editor

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A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined AIN in 2007, Curt came to the publication from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to AIN sister publication Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.

Before joining AIN, Curt worked with Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

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