Nov 30, 2008 8:29 pm US/Pacific
Booms Rattle SoCal During Endeavour Landing
LOS ANGELES (CBS) ―
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The Space Shuttle Endeavour makes a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California on Nov. 30, 2008.
CBS
Southern Californians who missed NASA's warnings were jolted by a quick pair of double sonic booms Sunday as the Space Shuttle Endeavour glided through local airspace at 600 miles an hour, en route to a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base.
A worried resident in Studio City called fire dispatchers to report their apartment house had suffered an explosion, but arriving firefighters
found nothing except people who had not heard the warning.
"We usually get a couple of calls" when the shuttle is diverted to its backup landing strip, a dry lake bed 45 miles north of the Civic Center, said Cecil Manresa, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Fire Department.
High winds at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida,
forced NASA to land Endeavour in California after its latest mission, where seven astronauts made major repairs and built additions to the International Space Station.
Loading the glider onto that special 747 for the flight back to Florida
will cost NASA about $1 million, NASA said.
The shuttle touched down at 1:25 p.m., and the quick succession of sonic booms hit about five minutes before that. Windows in a West Los Angeles highrise shook visibly, and the floor moved slightly, as the booms hit.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
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