Saturday, February 22, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Shuttle debris search in desert yields nothing on first day

Teams to continue hunt in Nevada, Utah

Members of the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department, including Deputy Derek Foremaster, left, and Sheriff Dahl Bradfield, second from left, search Friday for shuttle debris in a remote desert location near Panaca. AP Photo Click above for enlarged image. Graphic by Mike Johnson.

PANACA -- Searchers scouring the desert near the Nevada-Utah state line on Friday failed to find any pieces of the space shuttle Columbia that are suspected of falling off near this remote town.

Deputies and volunteers covered 4 square miles, less than 15 percent of the search area, but found only a potato chip bag and an old soda can.

As the team ended its work for the day, a similar search was getting under way some 80 miles away in Utah.

Progress was slow in Nevada as 20 searchers combed a 30-square-mile area of dirt and sagebrush for debris that they were told by NASA could be smaller than a dinner plate.

"We're checking everything out," Lincoln County Sheriff Dahl Bradfield said. "It's tedious."

Searchers using global positioning devices picked spots and walked 5 feet apart in straight lines, marking the grid with red and yellow survey tape.

"Talk about the proverbial needle in the haystack," Lincoln County sheriff's Deputy Derek Foremaster said as he walked through the desert.

Ken Dixon, search and rescue commander for the Lincoln County sheriff's office, said searchers on foot, riding all-terrain vehicles and in planes believe they're looking for a heat-deflecting tile from the shuttle that broke apart Feb. 1. All seven crew members on board died.

"Anything that we find west of Fort Worth (Texas) is an item that Columbia shed early on in its re-entry," said James Hartsfield, a spokesman for Johnson Space Center in Houston. "It could provide us with very important clues to determining the cause of Columbia's accident."

Bradfield said the hunt for shuttle debris would resume this morning with an additional 20 searchers. More volunteers from the Civil Air Patrol and inmates from the Pioche Conservation Camp are expected to join in the search. A representative of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration also is expected.

Hartsfield said that air traffic control radar also might have tracked another piece of debris falling near Cedar City, Utah. Searchers were mobilizing to look in a 10-square-mile area in Washington County in the southwestern corner of the state.