Houston ? An attempt may have been made to override Columbia’s autopilot in the final few seconds of its doomed flight, according to information received Sunday by the space shuttle’s accident investigation board.

But, as an official close to the investigation stressed: “The data are really suspect. They can’t ensure the integrity of any of the data, and some of the stuff that they’re saying may be inaccurate or misinterpreted.”

A NASA spokeswoman, Eileen Hawley, said the possible attempted override could have been unintentional; in other words, one of the pilots may have bumped the stick.

ABC News reported Sunday evening that data showed one of the crew may have tried to take over the space shuttle before its destruction above Texas on Feb. 1.

For weeks, in an attempt to reconstruct what went wrong during Columbia’s re-entry, NASA and other experts have been analyzing data that were transmitted in the final 32 seconds of flight. The last two seconds of data, which follow 25 seconds of nothing, indicate that there was an input to disengage the autopilot system, the official said.

The data also suggest that the four steering jets that automatically began firing to try to compensate for the increased drag on the left side of the spacecraft were no longer able to counteract the forces, the official said. A breach in the left wing, which allowed hot gases to penetrate, is suspected for the cascade of catastrophic events.

“It kind of indicates the orbiter was out of control, basically,” the official said.

The autopilot never went off, the official noted, possibly because there was not enough time for it to do so — or perhaps because there was no attempt by the crew to override it.

“Had you had more data after two seconds, you might know whether it would have gone off or not,” the official said.

It is difficult if not impossible to know, with certainty, “whether that was unintentional or whether it was intentional or whether it even occurred at all,” the official said.