[Thud]

Looks like Columbia went from a 57 degree bank to going sideways, left wing forward, while on a horizontal plane. Is that a 90 degree bank?

Re-entering with the left wing forward would certainly explain the burn-through starting there. I don't know if that is what happened, though. Did it leave the 57 degree bank due to other problems, most likely a burn-through, or did the loss of control cause the burn-through?

[Erasmus]

At 207,000 feet you still have little in the way of aerodynamic control, even at 12 000 MPH. So you could get into a 90 degree yaw, or sideslip, as the video seems to show.

I would think that if the reaction control system was still functional they might have been able to correct the attitude; but things may have happened too quickly, and the craft may already have been aerodynamically compromised (e.g., from the purported damage during launch).

And of course, your ship is not designed to take the friction heating in that attitude so it's likely to have a structural failure pretty quickly.

That's what appears to have happened.

[freepersup]

As stated in another post- how the shuttle came to be travelling at mach 18 sideways is the six million dollar question.

Not to be insulting by stating the obvious, the shuttle was doomed once it assumed a fatal sideways re-entry position. I just found that fact so compelling when watching the video because it was the first time that I had seen this image captured on film and it was a foregone conclusion as to what would happen next. Granted we already knew the outcome, but to see the final seconds of the shuttle's existence still in a relatively intact configuration, was chilling, to say the least.

Chunking down the thought process to a caption sized comment would be something like-

Super heated shuttle knifes through atmosphere sideways, disintegration follows.