At about 9:00 a.m. ESTNASA's Mission Control at the Houston space center lost radio contact, as expected, with the space shuttle Columbia as it descended from 207,000 feet (39 miles) above north central Texas over 12,500 miles per hour (mach 17) toward its landing destination at Cape Canaveral near the John F. Kennedy Space Center and Jacksonville, Florida. The shuttle was expected to land at 9:16 EST but failed to arrive and apparently disintegrated over north central Texas. At about 9:05 residents of north central Texas reported a loud boom, a small concussion wave and contrails and debris above the counties southeast of Dallas. Video recordings show multiple contrails and flaming debris falling from the sky. NASA declared an emergency and alerted search and rescue teams in the area who located a debris field southeast of Dallas around Nagodoches, Texas. Although space shuttles are fitted with Soyuz emergency escape vehicles, Columbia's crew of six Americans and the first Israeliastronaut are feared lost. With the addition of the the first Israeli astronaut to the crew, security surrounding the launch and landing of the space shuttle were increased to avoid any potential terrorist attack. Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the United States Department of Homeland Security, stated that "There is no information at this time that this was a terrorist incident." Because of the high altitude of the shuttle when the incident occurred, it seems unlikely that terrorist actions were involved.
