Reconstructing Columbia: How Computer Modeling Can Help Crash Investigators

space.com ^ | 26 February 2003 | Tariq Malik

[Lokibob]

 

 

	Reconstructing Columbia: How Computer Modeling Can Help Crash Investigators By Tariq Malik Staff Writer posted: 07:00 am ET 26 February 2003

Crash investigators, poring over the remains of the Space Shuttle Columbia in the hope of finding the exact cause of its destruction, may find help in computer modeling - a tool that can electronically reconstruct the last minutes of an aircraft.

Using three-dimensional computer models, investigators could rebuild the ill-fated shuttle based on information gathered from sensor logs, radar data and observations to give a more complete picture of what happened and when. The modeling tool is widely used by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to investigate aircraft accidents and could be applied to the shuttle crash by Columbia investigators.

[Lokibob]

The article goes on to describe how computer modeling will aid the investigators in the last moments of the shuttle.

It has some good links that describe computer modeling and how it has aided aircraft accident investigations in the past.

[coloradan]

Interestingly they don't mention perhaps the most publically visible example of modelling, that of the TWA 800 crash. But in that case the modelling wasn't to understand the crash, but to discredit witnesses who reported seeing things rise from the surface immediately prior to the explosion that was the airplane. In the computer animations, the "rising streak" was explained as a "zoom climb" of the burning aircraft, completely outside the realm of physical possibility. And, unlike the simulations of Swiss Air 111, the TWA 800 simulations were shown repeatedly on the evening news.

Hopefully the NTSB is capable of more honesty this time around.