While this is an old disaster, it's back in the news... 1

[JohnRBaker]

I know this is an old disaster, but there's always stories about the Lockerbie bombing this time of year since it occurred just before Christmas, and now this year there's actually new news:

The U.S. has taken custody of the alleged bomb maker in the 1988 Lockerbie attack

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/11/1142121111/lockerbie-plane-bombing-arrest-pan-am-flight-103

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[JohnRBaker]

Speaking of stories about the Lockerbie bombing and crash, I have one of my own...

Note that the Lockerbie bombing is of particular interest to me in that I was flying back from Frankfort to L.A. on that same day. I had been visiting Opel in Rüsselsheim (they're owned by GM) with a co-worker for a series of meetings (we had just gotten GM as a client and we were asked to look at how Opel was was using CAD/CAM as they wanted them to be one of the early adopter sites for our software).

The original plan was for three days of meetings but we finished up early and since it was close to Christmas, rather than spending an extra day playing tourist (we had arrived on Saturday so we had all day Sunday to walk around Wiesbaden, which was where our hotel was, to see the Christmas decorations and even visited the PX at the US Army base). So when our meetings finished up around noon on Tuesday, we decided to try and get an early flight home. Now we had flown from LAX on American Airlines and we had tickets to fly home on Thursday, December 22nd.

We had the people in the local EDS office change our tickets (we were still part of MDC back then, but technically, EDS was our customer as they handled all the software needs for GM, worldwide, and besides, they had helped arrange this trip in the first place). Now we lucked out as they were able to just change our original tickets from Thursday to Wednesday, flying on the same American Airlines flight, Frankfort to LAX. However, if we couldn't have gotten that flight and they had offered instead to book us on a Pan Am flight out of Frankfort with us changing planes in Detroit, we probably would have taken it.

Now on Wednesday, when we were waiting at the Frankfort airport for our AA flight I commented that I had never seen security so loose (remember that the Pan Am flight originated in Frankfort as well). I had flown out of or through that airport at least a dozen or more times and security there was always very strict with personal with guns always very visible and never more than five minutes or so without seeing at least a pair walking around in uniform with automatic weapons. Now there weren't nearly as many security people as normal and when we went through the security line, it felt like they were just pushing people through as it was very busy that day with lots of people carrying packages and extra carry-on. In fact, I mentioned this to my co-worker, who didn't fly as often as I did and certainly not to Germany all that much.

Anyway, we got on our flight and made it back to LAX with no problems, and I got a Super-Shuttle to take me to my house (I didn't call and tell my wife I was coming home early as I wanted to surprise her as we had a houseful of company that year). Note that we never heard anything about the Lockerbie incident while on the plane nor at LAX nor during the shuttle ride. In those days, the LAST place that you would ever hear bad news about an air accident was at an airport (this was before everyone had smartphones with news feeds and the internet). When I walked in our front door that was the first time I knew there was something wrong because my wife virtually yelled at me as to WHY did I pick THAT day to fly home considering WHAT had just happened, as if I had any control over events.

So, to this day, whenever I hear someone mention the Lockerbie crash, I shudder thinking of how things might have turned out if we had NOT been able to get our tickets on that American Airlines flight changed.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

As a kid I remember driving past the crash site to my grandparents.

The airtraffic controller at Scottish that was working it had life changing mental health issues afterwards.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

A mate at Scottish who has just retired has just posted up this account of what was happing in the centre.

https://gladtobegrey.blog/2018/12/10/lockerbie/

Feeling guilty now I had forgotten Toms name, not that I knew him of course. But he had been talked about so many times in various courses over the last 20 years.

And to note in those days it was the old green CRT displays they were working on. And primary radar return without filters is a really mind blowing skill interpreting.

 

[dik]

I don't know if the guy's guilty or innocent. I hope they have more information than a 'confession', or they can really substantiate it. Why was he not tried in Scotland?

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Dodgy confessions have been thrown out of Scottish courts all my life.

Plus the US is still smarting that the last guy was sent back to Libya to die of cancer. Which I might add saved the Scottish tax payer an utter fortune.

 

[dik]

My concern... maybe the confession was dodgy...but, adequate for US courts...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

The Scottish people have got over it mostly, I would say there is more feeling about the Dunblane massacre than about Lockerbie.

But its a bit like that 103 year old that's just been done in Germany for Holocaust crimes which has just gone through. She got 2 years house arrest or restricted movement but as she hasn't been out of her nursing home for the last 5 years it seems pretty pointless to me.

 

[dik]

It's sad that the courts didn't throw that out.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[hokie66]

Dik,

Perhaps you should confine your comments to courts in your own country. But if you want to talk about countries where gross injustice is done, I suggest China, Russia, Iran...

 

[dik]

Why Hokie... an injustice in a 'civilised' country is maybe worse than one in a country where you expect that type of action.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

there is a few more years left from the concentration camp stuff. I think she was 18 at the time she was a paper pusher for the commandant at one of the concentration camps. Surprised actually how many from that period are still alive that they are chasing.

And now it will start again with the Russian stuff.