Expert offers theory on shuttle blast

Press, 30 January 1986, Page 6

Expert offers theory on shuttle blast

A Christchurch representative of the company which built the doomed space shuttle, Mr Noel Kinzett, says a broken fuel pump or fuel line may have caused yesterday’s explosion. Helium and oxygen pumped through 30cm fuel lines would quickly ignite if exposed to the heat of the shuttle’s main engines, he said.

Mr Kinzett is a retired aeronautical engineer and lectures throughout New Zealand for Rockwell International, the makers of the shuttle and its booster rockets.

He saw the assembly of the Challenger during a fact-gathering tour in the

United States.

Computers which monitored the shuttle’s engines could have given the crew a split-second warning of the fire and a chance to jettison the booster rockets, he said. A visual and audible alarm would have alerted the crew to the danger. On-board computers would have been transmitting information to ground control when the fire started and this could make the search for the cause of the explosion easier, Mr Kinzett said. Safety was always the priority but yesterday’s disaster would mean a return to the drawing board, he said.