[Paul Ross]

There are a number of video shots which showed that the ship (over Arizona) had already slewed almost 90-degrees sidewise, and was descending with its left-most wing first. This is odd, since the drag was the greatest on this wing. You would think it would have caused the shuttle to rotate around the other way, and lead with its right wing. At any rate, at Mach 18.5 the ship's vertical stabilizer could not withstand such pressures (taking the full blast against it's side) long before snapping off.

[Cold Heat]

Those angles were done through the normal course of landing. They are called roll reversals.

Yes, the left wing was damaged and when second turn was initiated, the wing got worse.

I donot know what AZ pics you refer to that show the shuttle skewed. The data tranmitted by the shuttle at that time showed everthing normal as to the flight path.

[Alberta's Child]

There's been a lot of talk here on FR about that video clip, and we've determined that what appears to be the shuttle hurtling sideways across the sky is actually an image distortion that is common in certain camcorders when the object is out of focus.

Some folks who really knew their stuff about video cameras helped clear that one up.

[jlogajan]

There are a number of video shots which showed that the ship (over Arizona) had already slewed almost 90-degrees sidewise

There is no such video.

[Arkinsaw]

There are a number of video shots which showed that the ship (over Arizona) had already slewed almost 90-degrees sidewise

Flare off the camera lens, nothing more.

[eno_]

At 200k feet, aerodynamic forces are a tiny fraction of what they are at sea level, or even at 40k feet. The Shuttle could have been sideways for a fairly long time. If that is the case, it may be being kept quiet because the crew would have certainly known things were very badly wrong.