While Convair accepted responsibility for the launch failure, Lockheed engineers expressed concern about telemetry data that indicated a servo failure in the Agena, leading to doubts as to whether the stage would have still operated properly if the Atlas hadn't malfunctioned. However, the true cause of failure surfaced when the Air Force released film taken by tracking cameras at Melbourne Beach, Florida, which showed the Atlas pitching over and heading downward. It was then determined that the Agena's servo malfunction was caused by passing through the Atlas's ionized exhaust trail.