The Best Part #5 of CAIB Report

MMT on the 24th: Don McCormack VERBALLY summarizes that there is no
safety of flight risk due to the debris strike. He brings no technical
documents to support this to the meeting, nor does he distribute any
later, according to the CAIB final Report. Just prior to the MMT mtg,
he was in a standing-room-only Debris Assesment Team mtg discussing
the foam strike. All the engineers' concerns are distilled by D.
McCormack into a very short conversation at the MMT. All apprehension
is brushed away with the magic words: "we do not see any kind of
safety of flight issue here" with no technical papers or PowerPoint
slides to support his claim. Furthermore, no one asks to see the work
done to support this conclusion.

(see Chap. 6, pgs. 160-161 of the CAIB final Report:
"At 7:00 a.m., Boeing and United Space Alliance contract personnel
presented the Debris Assessment Team's findings to Don McCormack, the
Mission Evaluation Room manager. In yet another signal that working
engineers and mission personnel shared a high level of concern for
Columbia's condition, so many engineers crowded the briefing room that
it was standing room only, with people lining the hallway.
The presentation included viewgraphs that discussed the team's
analytical methodology and five scenarios for debris damage, each
based on different estimates of debris size and impact point. A sixth
scenario had not yet been completed, but early indications suggested
that it would not differ significantly from the other five. Each case
was presented with a general overview of transport mechanics, results
from the Crater modeling, aerothermal considerations, and predicted
thermal and structural effects for Columbia's re-entry. The briefing
focused primarily on potential damage to the tiles, not the RCC
panels. (An analysis of how the poor construction of these viewgraphs
effectively minimized key assumptions and uncertainties is presented
in Chapter 7.)
While the team members were confident that they had conducted the
analysis properly – with-in the limitations of the information they
had – they stressed that many uncertainties remained. First, there was
great uncertainty about where the debris had struck. Second, Crater,
the analytical tool they used to predict the penetration depth of
debris impact, was being used on a piece of debris that was 400 times
larger than the standard in Boeing's database. (At the time, the team
believed that the debris was 640 times larger.) Engineers ultimately
concluded that their analysis, limited as it was, did not show that a
safety-of-flight issue existed. Engineers who attended this briefing
indicated a belief that management focused on the answer – that
analysis proved there was no safety-of-flight issue – rather than
concerns about the large uncertainties that may have undermined the
analysis that provided that answer."

pg. 161
"McCormack: 'Right, it would mean possible impacts to turnaround
repairs and that sort of thing, but we do not see any kind of safety
of flight issue here yet in anything that we've looked at.'"

"At the Mission Management Team's 8:00 a.m. meeting, Mission
Evaluation Room manager Don McCormack verbally summarized the Debris
Assessment Team's 7:00 a.m. brief. It was the third topic discussed.
Unlike the earlier briefing, McCormack's presentation did not include
the Debris Assessment Team's presentation charts. The Board notes that
no supporting analysis or examination of minority engineering views
was asked for or offered, that neither Mission Evaluation Room nor
Mission Management Team members requested a technical paper of the
Debris Assessment Team analysis, and that no technical questions were
asked.")

Ellen