"The chances are that exposure and blood loss may have had some say in their death. 1. About 30 tons of freight was placed in the fuselage of the jumbo and over 108 tons of highly flammable kerosene lapped around in its tanks. Policemen walk away from the cockpit of the 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, 22 December 1988. A California law says yes. The Maid of the Seas had been put into service on 12 February 1970 and had since made 16,497 flights and logged in 72,646 flight hours. It was here that Jim MacQuarrie would take over from another pilot. The transatlantic leg of the route was operated by Clipper Maid of the Seas, a Boeing 747-121 registered N739PA. Frank Taylor, an aviation safety consultant and former investigator for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, said a cockpit recording that appears normal until the end could indicate that an explosion knocked out communications, electricity and perhaps even severed the cockpit from the aircraft. At the time of his alleged visit, the Libyan was 14 years younger than the man first described by Gauci. Among them were Lindsey's parents, Richard, an eminent neurosurgeon, and his wife, Peggy, from Baltimore, Maryland. Could the PFLP-GC have been responsible for Lockerbie? But all parties have to go through with this trial to save face. Libya eventually said it was ready to turn over its two citizens, but only to a 'neutral' country. A terrorist bomb destroyed Pan Am flight 103 over the small Scottish town in December 1988 shortly after it had left London on its way to the USA. Normally only four policemen worked in the Lockerbie region, but by Thursday morning there were 1,100 working alongside 1,000 other soldiers, firemen and volunteers. Scottish rescue workers and crash investigators search the area around the cockpit of Pan Am flight 103 in a farmer's field east of Lockerbie Scotland after a mid-air bombing killed all 259 . Witness: Peter Giesecke with debris from aircraft 'Clipper Maid of the Seas' that had taken off half an hour earlier from London Heathrow. You cant make an aircraft bomb proof but you can help them withstand the kind of small device that could come on in hand luggage. They came to the conclusion that an 'improvised explosive device' had been built into the recorder and had been placed in a brown Samsonite suitcase. if(m!=-1){b="&"+unescape(k[g].substring(m+6))}}document.cookie=e+"=; expires="+new Date(new Date().getTime()-60).toGMTString()+"; path="+a+"; domain="+h}ns_pixelUrl=n; Mr. Mas'ud's name surfaced twice in 1988, even before the bombing took place. 'What they have achieved is so uplifting and I will never forget these wonderful people.'. Lockerbie, 7.03pm and 26 seconds With the motors still going at full speed, the Boeing crashed on to the ground at half the speed of sound: the drop had taken 36 seconds. A terrace house was crushed from above, as if an enormous hammer had pounded through the roof. u = u.replace(/\/reviews\//, '/'); The Swiss manufacturer of the device has since said that the device found at Lockerbie was not the type that he had delivered to Libya in the past. After finding the spot where the explosion had happened, the team checked loading records to establish when individual pieces of cargo had been put onto the plane. The blast had left wreckage strewn over a huge area around the spot where the plane had hit the ground. Pilots who lost their careers and pensions as a result of the collapse of the Pan Am airline following the Lockerbie bombing will be able to claim part of a proposed multi-million-pound . Eleven residents of Lockerbie, Scotland, died when the plane slammed into their village. PENNINGTON, N.J. -- The co-pilot of the Pan Am jet destroyed last week by a bomb was remembered Friday as a 'steadfast' community leader who would want his mourners to reject revenge and work 'for . The cockpit recording and flight data tapes from the Boeing 747 were being analyzed by the departments Air Accident Investigation Branch. Kenneth Bissett was one of 35 Syracuse University students returning home for Christmas. There were still quite a few victims in there. Admission Charges. The children came down the stairs screaming. I'd never learned the identity of the girl on my hedge but I'd never forgotten her.'. While the security forces of an airport are responsible for checking passengers and their hand luggage for dangerous objects, it is the duty of each airline to examine luggage that is stored in the freight section. The youngest was nine weeks old and the oldest was a 79-year-old woman from Budapest. ', 'We still keep in contact at Christmas time and send cards and flowers. He added: 'The garden and the area had all been cleaned up by then. A farmer had discovered the body of the toddler lying in one of his fields, then driven her to a makeshift morgue set up at the town hall. The flight now weighed 323 tons and there were 259 . } No one is implicating the Gadaffi regime, even though the Scottish prosecutors themselves take it for granted that the two agents were working for their government. He said: 'We'd all had to evacuate our homes because it was too dangerous to stay there, but I'd gone back the next day to get some bits and pieces. The first involves the fragment of the timing device that was found in the wreckage of the plane and that led US authorities to suspect Libyan agents in the first place. The woman looked at me and said 'I believe my daughter Lindsey was found in your garden. var path = u.split('/').slice(3); Edinburgh, 23 November 1999 The Times reported that the Scottish defence team in the trial is seeking not only to absolve the two defendants but to name Mohammed Abu Talb as the guilty party. Lockerbie, Sherwood Crescent, about 7.10pm Donald Bogie lives in Ashgrove Terrace, a northern extension of Sherwood Crescent, and his experience was like that of most people in the town. The flight was. For a while, there was only sound and light where houses were burning. At that point, he gave a detailed report of the activities of the Libyan secret service on Malta. This initiates the seat's rocket boosters, which propel the pilot 100 to 200 feet upward. var countername = []; asset_id = matches[1]; During the months that followed the bombing, relatives of the Pan Am passengers arrived in Lockerbie, seeking comfort and answers about the deaths of their loved ones. On Dec. 21, 1988, a bomb went off on a Pan Am passenger plane flying over Lockerbie, Scotland, causing a midair explosion that sent the aircraft crashing down. To this day, Lindsey's mother, Peggy, 85, still cherishes two small pebbles from Mr Giesecke's garden she took as a permanent reminder of the spot where her daughter the youngest of her six children - was found, and of the Scottish town which treated her and other victims with such kindness and respect. He added: Im proud to have been a part of it and part of the AAIB. A photograph of Steve balanced on a ladder taking pictures inside the severed nosecone became one of the iconic images of the disaster. But even a force of this size could not prevent the first ghoulish sightseers from blocking the narrow country roads the next day. It smelled of kerosene. Mrs Otenasek knows she is unlikely to visit Lockerbie again because of her age but, earlier this month, was delighted when 'Lockerbie came to her' instead. return countername.join('. The aircraft had taken off just half an hour earlier from London Heathrow and was on its way to New York with 243 passengers and 16 crew on board, when a Semtex bomb hidden in a suitcase detonated at 31,000 feet. We knew it was a small device so why had it brought down a large plane?. The 30-year-old posted a video on Instagram of her final moments inside the cockpit of the doomed plane moments before the fatal crash. countername.push('page'); The flight now weighed 323 tons and there were 259 people on board. '); Rolex's iconic GMT Master Concorde ad. For further details of our complaints policy and to make a complaint please click here. Hours would pass before Bunty Galloway and her neighbours would learn that a passenger jet had crashed into their town. On December 21 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down by a terrorist's bomb over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. Other witnesses identified the victim as Ms. Berti. View our online Press Pack. Days would go by before specialists were certain that a bomb had caused the catastrophe. Climate change sparks disaster fears, Police manhunt continues for suspect in Texas mass shooting, A powerhouse U.S. doctor slain in Sudan, killed for nothing, In final Mass in Budapest, pope urges Hungary to open doors. A $300-million (minimum) gondola to Dodger Stadium? Then came a shocking discovery, Neglected for Years : Health Care: Philippine Crisis Looms, Wildfires in Anchorage? Lives in ruins: A police officer looks over the rubble from houses destroyed in the disaster where all 243 passengers and 16 crew members on board were killed, Aftermath: A crater in the town, filled with the wreckage from a deadly combination of mangled fuselage and burned aviation fuel that rained down upon Lockerbie with lethal force, Debris: Large sections of the aircraft littered the streets of Lockerbie as seen in this photo taken by MrGiesecke after the disaster, I felt tearful as Peggy picked up one and I remember telling her: 'You take that home and keep that in memory of Lindsey. if (u.match(prod[name])) { Looking down from that helicopter, seeing people spreadeagled on the ground, almost as far as the eye could see. Pan Am Airways, the unofficial U.S. flag carrier and, according to Business Insider, the most glamorous, had failed to restructure and would cease operations. About 70 bodies found by search parties still lay outdoors and about 80 were placed in a makeshift morgue in the town hall. ', Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. The body of a child lay at the foot of the stairs that lead to Bunty Galloway's home. With the evidence pointing to a deliberate attack, Steve now retired after 30 years with the AAIB started to work more closely with cops as the hunt for the bombers began. Robert Black, a law professor at the University of Edinburgh, made a compromise proposal in 1994 that was long rejected by all sides but which was finally accepted after tensions between Libya and the rest of the world had cooled: a Scottish court would judge the two suspects, but the trial would take place in the Netherlands, the headquarters of the International Court of Justice. she said that the cockpit of Pan Am flight 103 landed 50 yards from the remote cottage she still . Invisible, but not without danger, were the 400kg of enriched uranium that made up part of the plane's stabilisation mechanisms which had been spread along the trail of the wreckage. Doing our thing is a technical investigation on how fast the aeroplane broke up, but the police were thinking about who was responsible. The cockpit of the Maid of the Seas, 5.30pm Captain James Bruce MacQuarrie was sitting on the left side of the cockpit of the Boeing 747. The first ever timepiece for a pilot dates back to 1904. She added: 'It was one of Lindsey's friends who called me to check which flight she was on as she'd heard there had been a crash. Pan Am hoped to emerge from bankruptcy court, but after realizing it was losing $3 million per day, Delta stopped its cash advances. Is it really meant to? countername.push(prod_name); Mr Giesecke, who had just put his children to bed before the atrocity, recalled: 'As the fuselage hit the streets around, the windows at the back of our house blew in, the lights went out and we were in darkness. Email us atscoop@the-sun.co.ukor call 0141 420 5200, News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. It was only after considerable pressure from the defendants' lawyers that the US admitted that he had made contact with the CIA in 1988. One of them had been loaded in Frankfurt. Last night, Mr Giesecke recalled the moment the families met for the first time, saying: 'About a year after the bombing, I remember working in my garden when I saw a couple standing uncertainly on the pavement outside my gate. Clipper 1736 Pan Am 1736 carries 378 passengers, 16 crew, and two Pan Am employees, who boarded in Tenerife and are sitting in the cockpit jumpseats. I got used to it. Fort Halstead, autumn 1989 The Forensic scientists of the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment continued their search. A database containing CVR transcripts of aviation accidents and incidents. u = u.replace(/\/[12]\//, '/'); countername.push(part); The passengers immediately lost consciousness while the main body of the Maid of the Seas tipped forward, broke into several pieces and began to plummet. Sgt. Many had checked in in London, while others had come on 10 feeder flights to Heathrow; 49 passengers had arrived on a Boeing 727 from Frankfurt. 7. Steve added: We were able to say it was a container that came in from Germany and was loaded at Heathrow. 7.02pm and 50 seconds While the air-traffic controller was giving his instructions by radio, the image of the transponder suddenly disappeared from his screen. The third and major weakness of the case appears to be the star witness. When radar caught up with the position of the plane a few seconds later - at 55 degrees and seven minutes north, 3 degrees and 21 minutes west - the surprised, and then dumbfounded, controller in Shanwick saw many images on his screen: a Boeing jet that was breaking apart. The reconstructed remains of Pan Am flight 103 lie in a warehouse on January 15, 2008 in Farnborough, England. And they soon understood the horrific reality of what had destroyed the plane. What is certain is that the prosecution's case is inconsistent. It was clear it was in the cargo hold and the blast damage was quite obvious when you looked at it.. It was the worst in British history, and they were on the site that night. But forever on my mind is Lindsey, although I didn't learn her name until much later. I showed her exactly where I'd found her and she was very grateful I could explain what happened that night. Only 16km from Lockerbie stands the Chapelcross atomic power plant, one of the oldest in Britain. 'I remember I'd been baking ahead of her arrival and our home looked like Christmas and smelled like Christmas as we waited for our family to be with us again.'.