Thanks to NASA employee Jerry Swain for sending his thoughts about that day:

As the Shuttle Mission Simulator Instructor Team Lead for the 51L crew and mission I did not watch the launch from the MCC. When the explosion happened on the TV I was watching, I knew it was different from the many other launches I had seen.

At that time I thought maybe it was the SRBs coming off the ET but at the same instant I made the statement, "This isn't right. Something's wrong," but thought maybe the Shuttle had survived the explosion and might be able to fly an RTLS.

But as the various KSC camera angles showed nothing but debris falling I knew the Challenger had been destroyed too.

At this time I was numb to the thought of the friends I had just lost. I went about thinking of the proper next steps in confronting such a situation.

I knew all my training records and any other 51L related documentation I and my training team had would have to be secured for any accident investigation team use. At my office everyone knew what had happened, and I began contacting my team members telling them what they needed to begin gathering. It was then I then began to reflect on the whole event and loss.

The training team used to meet each year on the anniversary of the tragedy and drink a toast. But after many years most of us have moved on to other jobs and locations so we've missed this tradition.

During our training the crew and training team jokingly adopted Moosehead Beer as the official drink of the 51L mission.  We would banter between crew and team about it and bet on shuttle system knowledge, correct responses, or skill tasks on who had to "buy the beer." We had purchased a case for our end of mission celebration.I still have a six pack I was saving.