Body of Israeli astronaut found

Workers discovered key sections of the space shuttle Columbia on Tuesday, including wreckage from the fuselage and landing gear, which may help investigators determine why the space craft disintegrated over Texas.

In Israel, an Army spokesman announced early yesterday the recovery of the body of Israel's first man in space.

"Nasa authorities this morning informed representatives of the Israel Defence Force that the body of Israeli pilot Col. Ilan Ramon, who perished in the Columbia space shuttle disaster, had been identified," the statement said.

"The official identification was performed by Nasa, and Israeli representatives in Houston were formally notified. The (Ramon) family was likewise informed. All necessary preparation for bringing him to Israel for burial will be made in the coming days," the spokesman said.

No official word has been released on the bodies of the six American members of the crew.

The Shuttle debris, which included computer circuitry, was found in an area near the Louisiana border where the nose cone was located on Monday, said Jasper County Emergency Coordinator Billy Smith.

Recovery units paid particular attention to the area around Hemphill as recovery units searched the county's pine forests, river banks and open pastures to locate debris and remains from seven astronauts killed when the Columbia spacecraft broke apart over the American Southwest.

The independent board investigating the Columbia disaster got a first-hand look at the huge field of debris that scattered across Texas and Louisiana when the shuttle disintegrated 64 kilometres above the earth.

Board chairman Harold Gehman led the entourage. It visited a handful of sites near Nacogdoches, Texas, where debris rained down on Saturday in the worst US space accident since Challenger blew up in 1986.

After viewing broken and burned parts from the shattered spacecraft, Gehman vowed to get to the bottom of what caused it to fall apart.

"Our first imperative is to get it right. The astronauts who will fly in future orbiter missions need to know that we have done everything we possibly can to come to the bottom of this and fix it," said Gehman, a retired Navy admiral who led the investigation in the suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.

Residents have been calling authorities since Saturday to report debris on their lawns, back yards or ranches. But police have reminded residents at every opportunity to make sure they do not move the items.

Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss said the US attorney was expected yesterday to issue an arrest warrant for at least one person for allegedly removing debris, a federal offence because all the objects from the shuttle belong to the federal government. He said in several other instances residents who were visited by police voluntarily relinquished the items in their possession.

In Sabine County, where Hemphill is located, military teams dotted the two-lane highway and country paths and marched through the thickly forested woods, looking for pieces of the space shuttle.

The "debris belt" across East Texas, where much of the debris fell, was estimated to be about 160 kilometres long and 16 kilometres wide. Shuttle debris has fallen in an area stretching several hundred miles in length.

The process has been slow but teams on horseback and in all-terrain vehicles as well as local residents have located one of the seats from the spacecraft, a set of tanks spewing unidentified gases, a six-to-seven foot section of a wing in a pond as well as thousands of other pieces of debris that rained down after the spacecraft broke apart.

Police from other jurisdictions were also pouring into the area to help, including three members of the New York City Fire Department.