Shuttle crew's 'bid to stop autopilot'

One of the space shuttle Columbia's crew made a last-ditch attempt to save the craft just before it broke up, it was claimed yesterday.

Analysis of the last two seconds of data transmitted by Columbia revealed that a command was sent to turn off the autopilot, accident investigators said.

It could mean one of the pilots was trying to override the system in a futile bid to fly the craft himself.

The shuttle was spinning once every 18 seconds at the time, the new information showed. But, since that was the maximum speed the sensors could register, the rate of spin may have been higher.

'It indicates that the orbiter was out of control, basically,' a Nasa official said.

Experts are combing data the shuttle transmitted in the final 32 seconds in an attempt to recreate the events which led to it breaking up over Texas on February 1, killing all seven crew.

Following the final spoken transmission-from Columbia, in which Commander Rick Husband talked to a ground controller in Houston, the shuttle sent five more seconds of information.

Then there was silence for 25 seconds, followed by a final twosecond burst of data just before all communication was lost.

But, because of the garbled nature of the information, it was 'really suspect', a Nasa spokeswoman said.

What appeared to be an override could just have been a pilot bumping the control stick, she added.