Both the telemetry from the shuttle and the ground-based radar would have noticed if the shuttle were off its glidepath. No one from NASA has mentioned that when they gave the list of anomalous readings or indications, so...
Plus, if they were only 16 minutes to touchdown, wouldn't they be much lower in the sky prior to landing?
The shuttle "flies like a brick", and has a very steep glidepath. It drops pretty fast while flying in for a landing, so 16 minutes from touchdown it'd still be pretty darn high.
And it's been reported they were going 12,500 mph over Dallas, due to land in 16 minutes. But it's only about 1,200 miles from Dallas to KSC. At that rate of speed, they'd be landing in seven or eight minutes. So were they going too fast at that point, "out of control," or has the speed been misreported?
That sounds about right -- remember, they're at 12,500mph at that point, but *decelerating* rapidly. Yes, they'd overfly KSC in 8 minutes if they didn't slow down at all, but they *are* slowing down.
In fact, doing the math in my head, I believe that for a constant deceleration from speed X to zero over a given time period, you'll travel half as far as you would have in the same time if you didn't decelerate, so yeah, 8 minutes to KSC at 12,500 should work out to exactly 16 minutes to KSC if you're smoothly decelerating so that you're at "zero" speed on touchdown.
Also, given they had already entered the atmosphere around 5:45 am, as you, Leadpenny reported, they must have been flying lower to result in any intact body parts being recovered. Especially given that the debris was generally found directly beneath the flight path.
How do you figure that?
There's probably lots NASA hasn't mentioned.
Did you hear the pilots on Larry King?
How do you figure that?
What? That body parts wouldn't be "intact" after supposedly falling 230,000'? That's 45 miles up...post explosion.