[Alberta's Child]

I checked out that video clip, and I'm not sure that the object you see can clearly be identified. It looks too big to be the tail.

Even so, I think one issue is the position of the "shuttle" in that video and the fact that the clip lasts several seconds. At 18,000 miles per hour, I can't imagine that the spacecraft would maintain that position for even a few seconds -- it would have to start gyrating/rotating wildly just because of the flow of air around it.

[wasp69]

I know what you mean in regards to spinning. But you gotta remember that the video clip on the website is slowed down. The actual was maybe a second and a half to two seconds. Take a look at post 171 (I think) and it will take you to a thread discussing NASA talking about watching the tail section fall away. The reason I believe that it is the tail section is because of the there/not there appearance of a large flat object tumbling through the air. Also, if you look at it and look at the object, it appears to be proportional to the size of what many of us believe to be the shuttle.

My theory is that once that the wiring harnesses may have been burned through, the elevators (flaps) on the left wing failed and flopped in the wind creating less drag and causing the shuttle to yaw. Once it was pushed to the right, it lost attitude and the tail sheared off. I believe had the shuttle not come apart under the stress of being perpendicular to the air flow, it would have spun on it's horizontal axis until the air pushed it over and it tumbled.

I'm not trying to sell you on any one particular thing, but I do believe that the shuttle was coming down sideways and they lost comms with NASA several seconds before they came apart.