Report of shuttle debris on Jobs Peak appears unfounded

The report of debris from the shuttle Columbia on Jobs Peak is baseless, according to the pilot who flew a search helicopter and a spokesperson for the Douglas County Sheriff's Department.

NASA officials say no confirmed parts from the 22-year-old ship, which broke up 16 minutes before it was expected to land in Florida, have been found west of Texas.

"They checked (the report of shuttle debris on Jobs Peak) out and it was unfounded," said a Douglas County Sheriff's Department dispatcher. She said as far as she knows, no more searching was planned.

"It was very easy to see how they could have mistaken rocks for debris," said Maj. Nando Polo, pilot of the Blackhawk search helicopter, which hovered over the peak Friday.

Many of the rocks on the slope are rectangular and dark gray, Polo said Saturday. "They looked like the debris I've seen on TV."

Gardnerville Ranchos resident Lucas Schmersey, 17, who reported the sighting late Thursday, could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Searching from the helicopter were guardsmen from Moffett Air Field near Mountain View, Calif., a NASA official, Federal Emergency Management Agency representative and a Douglas County sheriff's deputy, Polo said.

"I had six people on board looking," said Polo. "We took a pretty good look."

The helicopter searched in the 6,000 to 10,000 foot level on the 10,823-foot peak, which is in California about 15 miles southwest of Gardnerville.

The crew searched from 4 p.m. until sunset about 5:30 p.m., according to Polo. They picked up Douglas Sheriff's Deputy Ron Elges at Minden-Tahoe Airport before flying to the peak. The deputy had spoken with Schmersey who said he spotted a 2-foot by 2-foot glowing object on Jobs Peak hours after the Columbia began breaking apart.

He told authorities it continued to glow for 15 minutes after it landed in the snow. Elges questioned the youth and contacted NASA officials who have been searching for debris from the Columbia.

A 2-foot-long section of one of Columbia's wings found near Fort Worth is the most significant discovery yet in the search for clues to the shuttle's destruction, according to Associated Press reports. The wing section was recovered at the western edge of the known debris field, which stretches more than 200 miles from Fort Worth across East Texas and Louisiana.

There have been reports of the shuttle breaking up over California and Nevada, however.

Fleischmann Planetarium technician Adam Kremers described a video taken by Keith Johnson, associate director of the Reno science center, which showed glowing parts breaking away from the Columbia. Kremers, who watched the shuttle pass over Nevada Saturday morning, said didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. "It was spectacular. It was glowing and had a very orange color, but I had no idea there was any trouble. I went back to bed at about 6 a.m."

ON THE NET

Fleischmann Planetarium: http://planetarium.unr.nevada.edu/

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

NASA: http:/www.jsc.nasa.gov/bios