Seconds from disaster

Last night I was watching "seconds from disaster" on National Geography channel.

The first one was an hour long one on TWA 800's mysterious explosion that happened 1996, the other one on Space shuttle Columbia.

I was so sleepy and yet I couldn't peel my eyes off the TV.

The TWA 800's explosion happened 2 days before I was due back to Oregon from Canada... and my flight was a TWA also. I remember being freaked out about it.

The program was talking about what happened, and the investigation it under went and then the what exactly caused it. It was quite scary and very intriquing. They kept showing a computer dramatization of the fuselage exploding which caused the plane to break into 2... The nose half nose dived into the ocean... the tail half climbed up about a 1000 ft before it plunged down... Here I was wondering how the people inside the 2 halfs felt...? Some of them would have been already killed off with the explosion.. but the remaining ones...? What about the ones that were sitting right where the plane broke in half? Imagine the state of the kids in it...?

Then there is the shuttle... breaking the earth's atmosphere speed of nearly 7500 MPH.. and the exterior disintegrating... doesn't leave much time for the people inside to think about their potential demise cuz they basically burned within seconds.

I couldn't sleep after I watched the program so I kept flipping the channels. I was haunted with the thoughts of the death of those people. It's amazing how a small maintenance issue could create a catastrophe.

I still can't shake off that feeling.