The How, Why and Who of Pan Am Flight 103
The how, why and who of Pan Am Flight 103 — which was sabotaged over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988 killing all 259 passengers and crew, and eleven people in the town of Lockerbie — are revealed for the first time in this article.[1]
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Contents
How Pan Am Flight 103 was sabotaged
The sabotage of Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988 was done by loading a suitcase containing a barometrically-triggered bomb into baggage container AVE4041, which was placed on the Boeing jumbo jet at London's Heathrow airport.
Evidence of Barry Walker (RHKP)
According to Lockerbie detective Barry Walker (formerly of the Royal Hong Kong Police):
- "The most important witness in the Lockerbie case was a Heathrow baggage handler, John Bedford, a loader/driver employed by Pan Am. Yet from the start his evidence was discounted or ignored, deemed to be of no relevance at all. On the afternoon of the 21 December 1988, Bedford was working at the Interline Baggage Shed a structure where Interline bags that arrived from other flights were brought and fed into the shed on a conveyor belt that extruded from the building. Here the bags were x-rayed and placed into luggage containers. Bedford had set aside luggage container AVE4041 for flight Pan Am 103. Bedford placed four or five suitcases, upright on their spines to the back of the luggage container then left the area to speak with his supervisor."[2]
Evidence of Dr Morag Kerr
Dr Morag Kerr, deputy secretary of the Justice for Megrahi campaign group, conducted a study into the Lockerbie luggage in September 2012:[3]
- Maid of the Seas carried eight containers of passenger luggage. Seven of these were filled with suitcases checked in at Heathrow, and sorted into the containers in the large and busy baggage build-up shed at the airport. The eighth was a container AVE4041 that had been partially loaded in the Interline Baggage Shed, and filled outside on the tarmac, taking luggage directly from the Pan Am feeder flight (Pan Am 103A) which had arrived late from Frankfurt with only 20 minutes to spare. That container was sent straight to the adjacent stand where the transatlantic flight (Pan Am 103) was preparing to depart, without entering the terminal buildings.
- On Christmas Eve 1988, three days after the disaster, the first piece of blast-damaged container framework was brought in from the fields to the east of Lockerbie. This was the first positive indication that the crash had indeed been caused by an explosion, as many had suspected from the outset, and it also indicated that the explosion was associated with passenger hold luggage rather than cabin baggage or cargo.
- Baggage handler John Bedford’s police statements reveal that when he set up the container to receive luggage for Pan Am 103, there were already two suitcases sitting beside the x-ray machine. He duly placed the cases in the container, upright with the handle(s) up, at the back, to the extreme left of the flat part of the floor. During the afternoon another four or five cases arrived, which he added to the line he had begun, working from left to right. At about quarter past four, as all was quiet, he went off for a tea break with his supervisor Peter Walker.
- The only luggage which could possibly have arrived in the shed before Bedford set up the container just after two o’clock was Mr Carlsson’s single suitcase and Nicola Hall's suitcase. However, although Miss Hall was booked on Pan Am 103, her suitcase was sent to New York on Pan Am 101 which left at mid-day. Thus the bomb bag, having been substituted for Nicola Hall's suitcase, must have been adjacent to Bernt Carlsson's grey Presikhaaf hardshell suitcase. Mr Carlsson’s case was the most severely damaged of the group, but even that was not presented in court as having sustained damage consistent with its having been underneath the bomb, and since it is known to have been placed immediately behind the bomb suitcase within a foot or so of the IED, it would have been expected to be severely damaged in any event.
Unlawful baggage switch
Nicola Jane Hall, aged 23 years, of Sandton, South Africa, was in seat 23K on Pan Am Flight 103 when the aircraft exploded over Lockerbie.
To get to London's Heathrow airport, Nicola Hall had travelled overnight from Johannesburg on South African Airways (SAA) Flight 234 with a high-powered apartheid regime delegation which included foreign minister Pik Botha, defence minister Magnus Malan and military intelligence chief General C J Van Tonder. Because SAA had been banned from flying direct to and landing in the United States (on account of the 1986 Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act) the South African party were all booked for onward travel by the US carrier Pan Am from London, Heathrow to JFK, New York.
After an eleven-hour flight, SA234 arrived at Heathrow at 07:20am. Pik Botha and his party were booked on Pan Am Flight 101 departing Heathrow at 11:00am to New York for the signing ceremony of the Namibia independence agreement at UN headquarters on the following day Thursday, 22 December 1988.
Although she was not in Pik Botha's official party, and was booked on the fatal evening flight Pan Am 103 departing Heathrow at 18:00pm, Nicola Hall's suitcase did not accompany her. It had been wrongly transferred at Heathrow to the morning flight Pan Am 101.
That South African Airways were involved in unlawfully switching baggage that day was confirmed by a Pan Am security officer, Michael Jones, at the Lockerbie fatal accident inquiry (FAI) in October 1990. Jones told the FAI a breach of aviation rules had been committed because the suitcase of South African passenger, Miss Nicola Hall, had been put on the earlier Pan Am 101 flight (with Pik Botha's delegation) whereas Miss Hall was booked – and died – on PA 103.[4][5]
