I was a sophomore in high school, sitting in my geometry class. Our class clown was listening to the radio in the back of the class. He broke the news to everyone and we all laughed at him not believing a word. A few minutes later, a couple of teachers came in to see if we had a TV in our classroom so that they could watch the news. I really followed the news and the investigation that followed the Challenger accident. I was very much fascinated with space and looked up to astronauts at that time.
@LebamDawg, thanks for the info on JAL 123. I didn't remember that crash. Even back then, I was an aviation geek and my brothers and I would talk about airplanes, crashes, etc. I watched a Youtube video on that crash and it was sobering. The flight crew did their best, but the plane was just uncontrollable. Amazingly, there are a couple of grainy pictures of that plane with its vertical stabilizer missing.
Some of the passengers also took pictures that were recovered. All the oxygen masks were deployed and there was a flight attendant talking to some passengers a few rows ahead. There was also a picture of the trailing edge of the right wing. The plane was till in straight-and-level flight at that point.
