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I didn't know that. So cause of death was impact (no parachutes) or drowning?

Fortunately no. From that altitude, you would not survive the decompression. I also do not believe a spacesuit would retain its integrity thru the catastrophic breakup of the cabin at the velocity they were traveling.

Passengers from an airliner that disintegrated in the air over South America all had their clothes ripped off by by force of imact with the atmosphere...they fell in the jungle far below, salvage crews picked their naked bodies out of the trees...heads and limbs had been torn off along with their clothes.

They were travelling only 500 mph when catastrophic breakup happened...imagine 12,000 mph.

The air is much thinner up at 400,000 feet where they broke up, but they were moving plenty fast all the way to the ground.

I ask God Almighty to bless and cradle them all...a futile request, for I know it's already done...I just need to say it, I guess...(

I may be wrong, but I think ffusco was referring to the Challenger disaster since the post he was asking of was regarding the used O2 canisters in the module.

Ffusco, if I'm right and that's what you were addressing, it is indeed been the record that a few of the crew survived the initial explosion and the module was intact all the way down to the ocean where they died on impact. The altitude was much lower and speed slower than the Columbia disaster and the astronuts were still in the protective module from the shuttle. One can only wonder if the outcome had been different there if the module itself had been equipped with a parachute of some kind(similar to what slows the shuttle down on the ground?) or some kind of ejection apparatus with parachutes--they definitely were not so high that it could not have been employed successfully(I don't believe they got past 65,000 feet if the good people on FR are right)