Witness History
Witness History
The Columbia space shuttle disaster
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February 19, 2019
10 minutes
Available for over a year
The US space shuttle Columbia broke up on its way back to Earth on February 1, 2003. It had been in use since 1981. Iain Mackness has spoken to Admiral Hal Gehman who was given the job of finding out what went wrong. His final report led to the winding-up of the American space shuttle programme in 2011.
Photo: The space shuttle Columbia during take-off. Credit: NASA.