plasma had entered the wing at high velocity—thousands of miles per hour—and pressurized the wing cavity. The pressure created vents, which blew the superheated plasma and molten metal out of the upper and lower surfaces of the wing. The materials blowing out through the lower vent formed an obvious burn pattern along the underside of the wing. As the plasma stream cut through the leading edge spar, it heated the wing and caused the adhesive that held the tiles onto the wing surface to fail. Those tiles peeled off the wing.
