O'Keefe: 'A tragic day for the NASA family'

Transcript of remarks from NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe 
and Astronaut Bill Readdy:

O'KEEFE: As indicated earlier, we'll make a statement today 
at this point, and a little later this afternoon at about 
3:00 Eastern time there will be a full technical briefing 
conducted from the Johnson Space Center. So at this point, 
we're just going to give you the circumstances as we 
understand them leading up to this particular tragedy today.

This is, indeed, a tragic day for the NASA family, for the 
families of the astronauts who flew on STS-107 and, likewise, 
tragic for the nation.

Immediately upon indication of a loss of communications on 
STS-107, at a little after 9:00 a.m. this morning, we began 
our contingency plan to preserve all the information relative 
to the flight activities.

I immediately advised the president and the secretary of 
homeland security, Secretary Tom Ridge, at the point after 
landing was due to have occurred at 9:16 (EST), spoke to 
them very briefly thereafter to advise that we had lost 
contact with the shuttle orbiter Columbia and STS-107 crew.

They offered -- the president specifically offered the 
full and immediate support to determine what the appropriate 
steps were thereafter to be taken.

We then spent the next hour and a half working through 
the detail and information of what we have received, 
and Bill Readdy will walk you through the specifics of 
those operational and technical issues here in just a 
moment.

Thereafter, we have met with the family members of the 
astronauts who were here at Kennedy Space Center and 
are soon to be departing back to Johnson, to Houston.

The president has called and spoken to them to express 
our deepest national regrets. We have assured them that 
we will begin the process immediately to recover their 
loved ones and understand the cause of this tragedy.

At this time, we have no indication that the mishap was 
caused by anything or anyone on the ground.

We've assembled a mishap investigation team that 
immediately was assembled upon the point of past the 
stage in which the orbiter was to have landed here at 
Kennedy Space Center, a little after 9:30. And that 
team in turn is coordinating on a regular basis on all 
the facts that are pertaining to this from the Johnson 
Space Center and a rapid response team from here at the 
Kennedy Space Center as well as participants from the 
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

In addition to these internal efforts, we have also 
appointed a mishap investigation board, an external 
group of people who are independent from NASA who will 
immediately be charged with the opportunity to look at 
all of the information that was immediately locked down 
right after our absence of communications.

Each of these individuals are safety and mission 
assurance-related officials in other federal departments 
of the federal government, from the Air Force, from the 
Navy, from the Department of Transportation, and across 
the federal expanse.

The investigation team also will be chaired by an individual 
contacted to serve who is external to the federal agencies. 
And we'll have the opportunity to coordinate all of the 
information again from an external view.

So we'll be conducting both the internal activity as 
well as an external review immediately to ascertain the 
causes and circumstances under which this tragedy occurred.

We'll pull together all of the federal agencies and 
local governments as well. In discussion several times 
this morning with Secretary Tom Ridge, the effort is 
heavily under way to coordinate an understanding of 
exactly where the orbiter path had taken it from West 
Texas toward the Kennedy Space Center here in Florida, 
and to make sure that the material on the ground is 
secured so that the investigation can begin promptly.

We urge anyone who believes they have discovered or 
found any material to stay away from it and to please 
contact local officials. The local first-responder 
groups for emergency services and so forth have been 
authorized and directed by Secretary Tom Ridge to 
assist in all manner. The Federal Emergency Management 
Agency is coordinating that effort on the part of the 
Department of Homeland Security.

Here this morning with the families of the astronauts 
and their friends started out as a pretty happy morning, 
awaiting the landing of STS-107. And we had highly 
anticipated their return because we couldn't wait to 
congratulate them for their extraordinary performance 
and the excellent efforts on the science mission on 
this very important flight.

They dedicated their lives to pushing the scientific 
challenges for all of us here on Earth, and they 
dedicated themselves to that objective and did it 
with a happy heart, willingly and with great enthusiasm.

The loss of this valiant crew is something we will 
never be able to get over. And certainly the families 
of all of them we have assured we will do everything, 
everything we can possibly do to guarantee that they 
work their way through this horrific tragedy.

We ask the members of the media to honor that too, 
to please respect their privacy and please understand 
the tragedy that they are going through at this time. 
We will help the media assure that be the case as well.

We trust that the prayers of the nation will be with 
them and with their families. And again, a more courageous 
group of people you could not have hoped to know than 
the families of these crew members. An extraordinary, 
extraordinary group of astronauts who gave their lives 
and did it in a way that they knew exactly the risk 
but never in a -- ever do we ever want to see a 
circumstance where something like this could ever 
happen.

And we diligently dedicate ourselves every single day 
to assuring these things don't occur. And when they do, 
we have to act responsibly, accountably, and that's 
exactly what we will do.

To give you more of the operational detail of what has 
occurred here since 9:00 a.m. this morning, the 
associate administrator for space flight, a former 
astronaut, retired captain in the United States Navy, 
former test flight pilot, Bill Readdy, who has commanded 
two separate missions previously as an astronaut and is 
now, again, our associate administrator for space flight, 
has worked with me all morning, along with all of us 
here at Kennedy Space Center, to work through the details 
of the events as we know them and to present to you the 
facts as we understand them.

Again, the technical details that are being worked very 
diligently now will be covered again at 3:00 p.m. this 
afternoon out of the Johnson Space Center.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to Captain Bill Readdy.

READDY: This is a truly difficult day for all of us. 
Many of us were standing alongside the runway waiting 
to celebrate their triumphant return after a 16-day 
science mission.

I think you could tell from the down link that they 
loved what they were doing and they thought what they 
were doing was extremely important, pushing back those 
boundaries in science.

At 9 o'clock we heard that they had lost data from the 
space craft, and it appears that that was at about 
200,000 feet and about Mach 18.

The loss of data was somewhere over north-central Texas. 
And at the planned landing time of 9:16 we initiated 
our contingency action plan, called the Rescue Coordination 
Center and initiated a search and rescue effort.

Sadly, I think from the video that's available, does not 
appear that there were any survivors.

We have currently impounded all the data, including all 
the pre-flight certification of flight readiness for 
STS-107.

And at this point, I'd have to say it's too early to 
speculate about the exact cause. Obviously, we're 
looking at all the data that we have available.

Those people who have videos, those people that have 
still pictures, we'll urge you to contact NASA so that 
we can coordinate those things that might be available.

And to reiterate what the administrator said: Those 
people that may find debris, do not touch it, do not 
move it. Contact your local authorities. Have them 
impound it and secure the area so that our technical 
specialists will be able to piece together the puzzle 
so that we can resolve what happened.

The immediate focus is on the crew families, and we 
spent some time with them. The president called. 
I'd have to say the families are bearing up with an 
incredible amount of dignity, considering their loss.

We all grieve for them, we all pray with them for the 
crew. But one thing came across loud and clear when 
visiting with them, is they knew that the crew was 
absolutely dedicated to the mission that they were 
performing. And I think you could see that in the 
video down link. They believed in what they were doing.

And in the conversations with the crew and their families, 
they said that we must find what happened and fix it 
and move on, and we can't let their sacrifice be in 
vain.

Today was a very stark reminder that this is a very 
risky endeavor, pushing back the frontiers in outer 
space. And after 113 flights, unfortunately people have 
a tendency to look at it as something that is more or 
less routine. Well, I can assure you, it is not. 
Each and every time I flew, each and every time my 
colleagues flew, we treated that with the respect it 
deserved from a professional standpoint.

And I have to say that, as the one responsible for 
shuttle and station within the NASA, that I know that 
the people of NASA did everything possible preparing 
for this flight to make it as perfect as possible.

My promise to the crew and to the crew families is that 
the investigation that we have just launched will find 
the cause, we'll fix it, and then we'll move on.

Thank you.