[Mr_Magoo]

If tiles failed, excessive heat would build in the wing. The crew would have no indication of this happening. The alum. wing assembly and the alum. wing struts melt at about 300 degrees. At 12,500 mph, a wing starting to melt would get soft and the forces from the airstream would tear off the wing suddenly.

Loss of 1 wing results in an aircraft tumbling. If you tumble out of control at 12,500 mph, the craft tears itself apart real quick like.

[Light Speed]

Yes I agree on the physics.
In my earlier post this thread..other shuttles have suffered damage from debrie strike..cosmic..even one admitted by Nasa which had the rocket booster seperate and rake the underside....this STS returned safely..allthough Nasa moved the orbiter near a satillite which was assigned to image the damage.

as mention..and this has my focus,..Columbia had one mission since its re-fit with new electrical trunk to new monitors and a new computer suite.
On STS 109 prior to de-orbit test cycle..STS 109 had a thruster /yaw/pitch failure in the 4 port package.
1-1/2 years of re-fit...Columbia lands...then Nasa discovers cracks in Columbias flow system to engine.
They missed this over 1-1/2 years?...Columbia suffered Harmonic damage..energy distortion in one flight?.

As per the many posts where we are beginning to think outside the box as per tile reality..many here are forwarding excellent thinking for novices.

I work in the steel fab/oilfield sector..an American firm out of Houston in Canada.
Primary duty is operating a CNC Plasma..underwater cut...50 ton remote cranes..steel..biggy huge scale.
The Plasma is Cryogenic nitrogen..100,000 volts.
It screws up...German techs fly in when locals cannot fix computer problems.
After Helmut leaves..the machine fails again...because of human error.
Columbia has human error potential..**Note potential** written all over it.
Columbia has one flight after being gutted nearly 2 times in re-fit...im thinking something in the way of computer systems failure..or human.