2 Big Chunks of Challenger Wash Ashore

Two large chunks of the space shuttle Challenger’s left wing washed ashore Tuesday, apparently the biggest pieces discovered since NASA closed the investigation into the accident in 1986.

NASA officials were surprised, especially at the size and fairly good condition of the barnacle-encrusted metal: one piece was 6 to 8 1/2 feet wide, 13 1/2 feet long and 2 to 2 1/2 feet thick; the other was about 6 inches wide and 5 feet long. Some thermal tiles and shriveled wires still were attached.

Both pieces were found in the surf in Cocoa Beach, Fla., about 20 miles south of the Kennedy Space Center. They were discovered 10 blocks apart.

Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986, killing schoolteacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe and six crew mates. A leak in a joint on the right solid-fuel rocket booster was blamed.

Officials do not expect the discovery to shed any new light on the accident. “We understand what happened with Challenger,” said NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham. “There’s nothing more we can learn.”

It’s been several years since anything from Challenger has been found. Fishermen usually discover the scraps; in 1991, for example, they found a small tank and a metal fragment a few feet long in the Atlantic off Cape Canaveral.

“It brings things back,” said Bruce Jarvis, father of Gregory Jarvis, who died in the accident. “It’s like having a bad wound and you’ve got a scab. It’s like somebody picking at the scab.”

Police said they were tipped off by a motel as well as a radio station that got a call from a listener reporting the debris.

Within hours, NASA had verified the fragments were from Challenger, and the parts were back at the Kennedy Space Center.

Parts of black and white thermal tiles and bits of shriveled wires were visible. White thermal blankets were peeled upward and some of the aluminum was crumpled slightly, but overall the fragment was not bent. It was a dirty beige, primarily because of all the barnacles and caked-on sand.

Both pieces will be buried after the holidays with the other shuttle remains--about 5,000 pieces weighing a quarter-million pounds--in two abandoned missile silos near the space center.

NASA theorized the fragments may have washed ashore because of rough seas from the past hurricane season, or a fishing boat may have snagged them and brought them close to shore.