<The question is not "Was the bailout system was effective?", the question is, "Did any of Columbia's crew try to bail out?"
Who knows? The flight suits contain both parachutes and survival gear. If it were me, and I were conscious, I would have tried to hit the silk if I had any chance at all. Unfortunately the odds of any of the astronauts surviving the initial breakup in one piece, let alone conscious, is almost nil. I have not seen any ejection seat that would work at above about Mach 2 or so, even advanced ones.
In contrast, there is evidence that some of the Challenger crew were conscious in their fall to the Atlantic--the cabin section was largely in one piece--but I don't think any of them had time or methods available to try to bail out.
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Re: Attempted hypersonic bailout
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- Attempted hypersonic bailout from Columbia?