1985 Space shuttle accident kills senator

From a list of close calls in the space program:

5. FLAT TIRE, FAILED BRAKES--APRIL 19, 1985

The last thing you want when landing 100 tons of the most complex machine ever built by humans is a flat tire. Or a brake failure.
Both happened to the seven-person crew of the STS-51-D space shuttle mission when they landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California—with U.S. Senator Edwin Garn (R-Utah) aboard.

1. O-RING EROSION--NOVEMBER 26, 1985
The launch of space shuttle Atlantis on November 26, 1985, would emerge as a haunting close call in the shadow of the Challenger disaster three months later.
Rubber O-rings serve as a seal between segments of the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters and prevent hot gases from escaping as the rocket fuelburns. During Atlantis’s chilly night launch, the cold winter air likely hardened the ring and allowed hot gases to escape through a crack.
The mission went off without a hitch, however, and NASA reported no anomalies even after retrieving the rockets from the ocean and inspecting them.
A similar failure caused space shuttle Challenger to disintegrate 73 seconds into its flight on January 28, 1986, ultimately killing all seven crew members.


POD: Incident (5) takes place, and the shuttle is destroyed and all passengers are killed. Once the shuttle program starts up again in November 1986 after repairs are made, incident (1) occurs and NASA notices that there is a problem. The shuttle is taken off line again for more repairs.

How does the scenario unfold? You've got a dead senator and a relatively new spacecraft out of commission for 1.5 years already and likely another delay as well of unknown duration in late 1986 as they fix the O-ring problem (assume the same delay they had after the Challenger incident IOTL).
 
Remember that the shuttle lands on the dry lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base, which for all purposes is basically an infinite runway. So even if there's a flat fire or the brakes fail, all the crew has to do is to keep the shuttle rolling along until it stops thanks to ground friction.
 
Potential problems

A blowout can send a vehicle out of control--though the shuttle has multiple tires on each gear, which reduces that problem. However, if the brakes fail spectacularly--perhaps, just as they're braking at their hardest, one side looses its brakes, and the shuttle crashes as a result. There's a possibility of survivors from this one; they are coming down with no fuel, mimimising the risk of a big KABOOM!
 
A blowout can send a vehicle out of control--though the shuttle has multiple tires on each gear, which reduces that problem. However, if the brakes fail spectacularly--perhaps, just as they're braking at their hardest, one side looses its brakes, and the shuttle crashes as a result. There's a possibility of survivors from this one; they are coming down with no fuel, mimimising the risk of a big KABOOM!

A very good possibility of everyone surviving actually. The shuttle crew area is a fortress, not even the challenger coming apart killed them(landing did though). A blowout might cause a lost vehicle sure, crew too hurt to walk away sure, but dead, not likely.

A better bet would be to make to night of that launch colder, or have falling debris damage the heat shield. There are also probably a hundred more things that could go wrong.

Also, before the challenger NASA had a program where guests could get to ride on the shuttle. I'm guessing that's how this senator got a ride. If foreign countries sent up their payloads on the shuttle, one of their people could get a ride. Maybe have it so that two go up on the same flight, one of them being the senator. And have the other one be unstable. For a while the main door to the shuttle did not have a lock, and one of said guests showed a lot more interest in it then the commander was comfortable with.
 
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