Two Navy divers, Terry Bailey and Mike McAllister, diving from the salvage ship USS Preserver, found the Challenger’s crew compartment on March 9, 1986, nearly six weeks after the orbiter was destroyed, 18 miles off the coast of Florida and about 100 feet down.
Two of the crew’s bodies, those of Judy Resnik and Christa MacAuliffe, were lifted to the surface by divers, but the condition of the wreckage made it too dangerous to remove the rest.
The crew cabin was hoisted to the surface by Preserver, where the remaining bodies were recovered, except that of Greg Jarvis, whose body came loose from the wreckage while being hoisted.
A frantic, determined search continued for Jarvis, as NASA and the crew’s families were adamant that all seven should be buried together and at the same time. His remains were finally found on April 15.
NASA did not publicly comment on the condition of the bodies “out of deference to the families,” but reports are that they were no longer recognizable as human remains.
Military forensic teams working out of Patrick Air Force Base identified the individuals, and in May 1986 the cremated remains were interred together at Arlington.
