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Video of the SRB leak just prior to the Challenger disaster was quite useful after the fact.

Also, the video of the foam chunk hitting the Columbia's wing.

An early Falcon 1 launch failed because the first stage recontacted the second after staging. You'll note one of the F9 cameras is looking up at the second stage from inside the first stage's interstage section.

The Columbia case is a better example than the Challenger case, because they actually caught that right after launch and analyzed it, though incorrectly.

Well, the analysis at the engineering level was correct. Problem is, the engineers weren't allowed to confirm it. That was a management decision, made on the grounds that, "There's nothing we can do".

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