Charles Norrie's Lockerbie theory

[Rolfe]

Baggage containers.

Until someone does some back-breaking hard work and proves beyond reasonable doubt that the almost reasonable re-use of containers is utterly impossible my theory stands.

That's what you had your first Stundie win for, declaring that your fantasy-theories must be accepted as correct until someone else had done the work of debunking them. It doesn't work like that.

As it is the container at 14L was originally destined to have been placed at 13R (check the trial transcript) which suggests that normally a pool of containers was allocated to a set of locations in the hold, even if the loading plan go a bit mangled when implemented.

Now just think about this. Bedford was working in the interline shed, some distance from the baggage build-up shed where the luggage from the check-in desks was sent. He set aside one container and one container only to take luggage for PA103 - to collect interline luggage as it appeared from other incoming flights (altogether about ten suitcases, apparently), and then to be filled with the transatlantic luggage coming on on PA103A. All the other containers that went into PA103 originated from the baggage build-up shed, a completely separate operation.

He selected AVE4041 from a pool of containers, indeed, but the other containers in that pool wouldn't have ended up on PA103.

I done know why everybody goes on about Mr Bedford's recollection. He seems to have been rather a fly airline worker, and workshy, ready to bunk off early when it seemed 103A would be arriving late.

John Bedford was in charge of the interline baggage shed and had worked there for many years. His supervisor told him to leave early rather than stay late to deal with the late-arriving PA103A. You have no evidence at all that he was "fly" or "work-shy", and in any case, that has no bearing on whether or not his recollection of the luggage in that container is accurate.

Suggestion by the police of his recollection of two suitcases (made during the reconstruction of events Bedford did in the early January) seems to have been happening here.

He was interviewed by the Metropolitan Police, only two weeks after the crash. This was before the Scottish police had positively identified the "primary suitcase" as a bronze Samsonite hardshell, let alone made that information public or shared it with their deadly rivals in the Met.

The Met were also desperately keen that the bomb should not have gone on at Heathrow, which would have put it squarely on their watch. So the chances of them prompting a witness to implicate Heathrow security as the broken part aren't exactly high.

And yet on 4th January 1989, John Bedford volunteered to the police that he had seen a reddish-brown hardshell suitcase, "of the type Samsonite make" appearing rather mysteriously in the very luggage container where a bronze Samsonite was later found to have expolded.

Quite a coincidence really, but then the Zeist judges decided it was nothing more than that, so as I said you're in good company.

(As an aside, you're getting your scenario confused again. If this massive MIHOP conspiracy, which had everything prepared in advance to plant at the crash scene, had decided on the scenario where the bomb suitcase was supposedly introduced at Luqa by Megrahi - wasn't it a bit careless of them then to suggest to Bedford that he saw that suitcase at Heathrow airport before the flight it was supposed to be on had landed there?)

Quite possibly after 12 years Mr Bedord's recollection of really a rather boring evening's work became confused with the police interest in it.

Mr. Bedford dealt with AVE4041 around 4pm on 21st December. About four hours later the news of the crash broke on Channel 4. An hour after that it occupied most of the BBC Nine O'clock News, with the flight number repeated many times. I don't think that evening's work would have faded from his memory very easily. He gave his statement to the police two weeks later. It was admitted in evidence at the FAI in 1990. He didn't have to "recollect" this from scratch 12 years later.

And the important point is that the police did not disclose the break-in until the appeal, when the defence is often at its weakest position.

If the break-in had been disclosed at the trial, what do you think, even with a bench as prejudiced as the Zeist one, their lordships would have been able to find Margrahi guilty.

No.

Uh, I fear yes. They hand-waved away much more compelling evidence against the Malta introduction than that, frankly. It's as the appeal judges said. Heathrow security was admitted to be as leaky as a sieve anyway. It was always admitted that someone could have gained access to the interline shed that afternoon, for nefarious purposes. Showing that there had been a specific breach of security there 18 hours earlier wouldn't necessarily have swayed a bench biassed enough to do what these judges did with the identification evidence and the Frankfurt evidence, I'm afraid.

Rolfe.

 

[CharlesNorrie]

So, Rolfe, you are arguing that the Newcastleton forest chip evidence is true?

Unless you are Mr Marquise, none of us here or on Black's site believe that.

I simply go further than anyone else and say, if I can't believe the chip evidence, the impossible Toshiba cassettee recorder stuff and the Horton manual, why should I believe any of the so called evidence.

Remember Mr Parks says that in a brisant explosion there should have been no suitcase evidence, but suitcase evidence was found. What simpler to do that simply add a bit of fakery to the scene of the crime.

And I believe Mr McKee and some of his colleagues were done to death by others in the CIA. You should be able to work out whom.

Read "So no evil" and find the copy-editing error.
Of course it isn't evidence? Or is it.

Now look at the anecdote about the seizuare of Mr McKee's suitcase from a Lockerbie hillside not far from AVE4041 PA. The authorities were very angry indeed with Johnston's revelation in his book and offered him the opportunity to meet Mrs Thatcher if he would reveal his sources and when he refused to help them was precognosed as a witness.

I'd love to talk to him, but don't know how to get in contact.

The point is that my synthesis is (a) no more unbelievable than others, who say the suitcase evidence is genuine (b) is a reasonable interpolation of the facts and (c) is not referred to in the conspiracy theories page for Pan Am 103, and (d) when I try to post there it disappears.

It's your job to explain what's going on. I've made my pitch and with very few small alterations I shall incorporate there is only innuendo against my theory.

Are you interested in solving Lockerbie, Rolfe, or is it simple entertainment for a rather lonely blogger who has nothing else in their life to do?

Be fair, find an error and I'll address it. A gap in bot an error it's an inference waiting to be confirmed.

 

[CharlesNorrie]

That's what you had your first Stundie win for, declaring that your fantasy-theories must be accepted as correct until someone else had done the work of debunking them. It doesn't work like that.

Then why do you doubt Mr Marquise?

 

[CharlesNorrie]

He selected AVE4041 from a pool of containers, indeed, but the other containers in that pool wouldn't have ended up on PA103.

Prove that statement!

 

[CharlesNorrie]

He was interviewed by the Metropolitan Police, only two weeks after the crash. This was before the Scottish police had positively identified the "primary suitcase" as a bronze Samsonite hardshell, let alone made that information public or shared it with their deadly rivals in the Met.

== That's a long while. They made him reconstruct a scenario which I think became muddled in his mind when
produced as evidence 12 years later.

The Met were also desperately keen that the bomb should not have gone on at Heathrow, which would have put it squarely on their watch. So the chances of them prompting a witness to implicate Heathrow security as the broken part aren't exactly high.

No logic in that conclusion, Rolfe. For the story of Bedford's suitcase would have fitted in but not well with a PFLP GC interference at Heathrow, and eventually MI5 did not want the Heathrow story at all, but were stuck with the Bedford story.

And yet on 4th January 1989, John Bedford volunteered to the police that he had seen a reddish-brown hardshell suitcase, "of the type Samsonite make" appearing rather mysteriously in the very luggage container where a bronze Samsonite was later found to have expolded.

== Prompted

Quite a coincidence really, but then the Zeist judges decided it was nothing more than that, so as I said you're in good company.

(As an aside, you're getting your scenario confused again. If this massive MIHOP conspiracy, which had everything prepared in advance to plant at the crash scene, had decided on the scenario where the bomb suitcase was supposedly introduced at Luqa by Megrahi - wasn't it a bit careless of them then to suggest to Bedford that he saw that suitcase at Heathrow airport before the flight it was supposed to be on had landed there?)

What is MHOP. I really don't like all this jargon. I try to make my story as simple as possible to help people like you, and you go and bury it in jargon.

Please start using the quote function as you were instructed by private message. You are required to follow moderator direction.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Professor Yaffle

 

[CharlesNorrie]

Really, I am interested in mechanisms and coincidental stuff about birth years, I just don't buy.

I believe the break in was used to stick a device on AVE4041 PA, or just possibly AVN7511 PA. Then please go and read the AAIB report again and note how it covers up the origin of the northerly debris trail.

Yet Peter Claiden refers to the blast from the device and Mick Charles as massive. Are they talking of the same explosion. I think not.

In Johnston book a witness sees a massive explosion high in the air just to the south of Lockerbie. This could not be the IED in the forehold as they went of 14 seconds and 3.1 km further south to the best of my analysis.

The CIA device went off in the CRAF hold. Please explain why they were 14 seconds apart. I have a reasoned argument, and I'll have you know I can prove my theory is being suppressed.

 

[Rolfe]

Let me take you to your supermarket example. Make it a very simple example of a single set of trollies all chained together with those coin operated locks in a single stack of trollies.

Consider a not very busy day the supermarket. On the front trollies will come off the stack and be used in the supermarket. Those at the back will not change there places all day. Trollies will be somewhat random if they have been used in the stack.

Not arguing with you there, although bear in mind that the baggage containers weren't chained together in any order, they were unconnected. How you think this is advancing your theory I can't imagine.

Also, there's no possible way that Heathrow at 4pm in the afternoon at a busy time of year could be compared to "a not very busy day" anywhere.

My problem is rather like can I predict which checkout a particular trolley will be used from position in the stack. No you can't really and that's like the 13R 14L confusion. But the trolleys at the head of the stack will go the checkut (rather like finding a location in the baggage hold).

Simple concept isn't it.

No, not really.

You started by asserting that your "Iranian gent" whom you believe broke into the airside area at midnight knew exactly which container to sabotage in the certain knowledge, 18 hours in advance of the flight leaving, that this container would be both present at the airport then, and destined to be on PA103 at 6pm. You said he was specifically looking for AVE4041 for that reason. You also required this to be the case, because your hypothesis involved that particular container (the one with Tiny McKee's suitcase transferred from the Larnaca flight in it) being traceable by your postulated transponder in that suitcase.

You based this on a theory that the baggage containers circulated in a regular, rigid, pre-planned pattern, with the baggage staff obliged to find exactly the right container for the plane they were about to load. You postulated that Bedford had to select 4041 for that job, because it and only it was the designated container, which had been waiting (idle and taking up space) overnight and all day, just for that purpose.

I'm pleased to see that you're know acknowledging this wouldn't have been the case, but you have to realise that this torpedoes your entire hypothesis.

Let's look at what you're now saying. You're altering your suggestion to the "Iranian gent" merely having to select (with certainty, remember) any container which will eventually be loaded on PA103. Just how is he going to do that, 18 hours in advance?

I repeat, baggage going on Maid of the Seas came from two different places in the airport - the baggage buildup shed, and the interline shed. The vast majority of it came from the former source, where the luggage belonging to passengers checking in "off the street" at Heathrow was sent. Most of the passengers on the plane were in that category.

However, that's not the category of luggage that was implicated. The implicated container, AVE4041, was the only one on that plane which originated from the interline shed. The one Tiny McKee's suitcase was presumably in, because he flew into Heathrow from Larnaca rather than checking in there de novo.

This, by the way, is the apparent reason for the firm insistence from early on in the investigation that "the bomb did not originate at Heathrow". Once the container containing the bomb suitcase had been identified as the one carrying only luggage from connecting flights, there was a collective sigh of relief and a decision to pass the buck back to Frankfurt (where most of that luggage originated).

Now think about what you're saying here. The "Iranian gent" had to sabotage the exact container which would later be loaded with Tiny McKee's suitcase, according to your scenario - not just any old container that would end up on PA103. To do that, of course, he would have to identify that single container that would be chosen for the plane in the interline shed.

If you're now agreeing that John Bedford chose AVE4041 more or less at random from a pool of containers, your theory has crashed and burned. Only one container from that pool was ever going to end up on PA103. It only works if he was obliged to choose that container, and there is no evidence at all that this was so. In fact there is good evidence that it wasn't, quite apart from the improbability and impracticality of the system you originally hypothesised.

Bedford made a statement and gave evidence, saying that he specifically remembered the container where he saw the mysterious suitcases was AVE 4041. His reason for remembering the number was that he was born in (19)40 and his wife was born in (19)41. If he had actually been following a rigid plan where he was obliged to locate AVE 4041 specifically for that purpose, don't you think he would have said so?

Rolfe.

 

[CharlesNorrie]

Not arguing with you there, although bear in mind that the baggage containers weren't chained together in any order, they were unconnected. How you think this is advancing your theory I can't imagine.
== Please try to think imaginatively.


Also, there's no possible way that Heathrow at 4pm in the afternoon at a busy time of year could be compared to "a not very busy day" anywhere.
There would have been a small amount of stuff placed in VE4041 PA during the day, some from the South African flight in the morning, some from people who were having a break in London.
There will be the baggage transfers on the tarmac from 103A. McKee had flown in early and his bag would have gone in.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie
My problem is rather like can I predict which checkout a particular trolley will be used from position in the stack. No you can't really and that's like the 13R 14L confusion. But the trolleys at the head of the stack will go the checkut (rather like finding a location in the baggage hold).

Simple concept isn't it.

No, not really.

You started by asserting that your "Iranian gent" whom you believe broke into the airside area at

== The break in is proved. It was discovered just after midnight by Mr Manly. He called it the worst security breach in his 17 year career with BAA.

midnight knew exactly which container to sabotage in the certain knowledge, 18 hours in advance of the flight leaving, that this container would be both present at the airport then, and destined to be on PA103 at 6pm.

== Yes that's perfectly reasonable. The run of containers had been offloaded from the flight into London from NY the afternoon they day before.

You said he was specifically looking for AVE4041 for that reason. You also required this to be the case, because your hypothesis involved that particular container (the one with Tiny McKee's suitcase transferred from the Larnaca flight in it) being traceable by your postulated transponder in that suitcase.

== AVE4041 PA became that day the 1st class baggage container. Mr McKee was big and justified the leg room I suspect to need to travel first.

You based this on a theory that the baggage containers circulated in a regular, rigid, pre-planned pattern, with the baggage staff obliged to find exactly the right container for the plane they were about to load.

== There is a high degree of predictable regularity in container operation, yes


You postulated that Bedford had to select 4041 for that job, because it and only it was the designated container, which had been waiting (idle and taking up space) overnight and all day, just for that purpose.

== Bedford is a complete red herring, except in as far as he would have had to label the containers according to the loading plan, posssible prepared days in advance.

I'm pleased to see that you're know acknowledging this wouldn't have been the case, but you have to realise that this torpedoes your entire hypothesis.

== I don't know what you're saying. You are being very dim.

Let's look at what you're now saying. You're altering your suggestion to the "Iranian gent" merely having to select (with certainty, remember) any container which will eventually be loaded on PA103. Just how is he going to do that, 18 hours in advance?

I repeat, baggage going on Maid of the Seas came from two different places in the airport - the baggage buildup shed, and the interline shed. The vast majority of it came from the former source, where the luggage belonging to passengers checking in "off the street" at Heathrow was sent. Most of the passengers on the plane were in that category.

== We are dealing with AVE4041 PA which only happened to contain first class baggage. It would have been off first and 1st class passengers don't like to wait.

However, that's not the category of luggage that was implicated. The implicated container, AVE4041, was the only one on that plane which originated from the interline shed. The one Tiny McKee's suitcase was presumably in, because he flew into Heathrow from Larnaca rather than checking in there de novo.

== Remember it's first calss.

This, by the way, is the apparent reason for the firm insistence from early on in the investigation that "the bomb did not originate at Heathrow". Once the container containing the bomb suitcase had been identified as the one carrying only luggage from connecting flights, there was a collective sigh of relief and a decision to pass the buck back to Frankfurt (where most of that luggage originated).

== It was MI5's part of the opeartion. MI5 did not want amother Heathrow security scandal. Neither did Frankfurt so it had to be offloaded on Luqa (or Cyprus or Cairo as Fraser says in his daming interview in the Gideon Levy film)

Now think about what you're saying here. The "Iranian gent" had to sabotage the exact container which would later be loaded with Tiny McKee's suitcase, according to your scenario - not just any old container that would end up on PA103. To do that, of course, he would have to identify that single container that would be chosen for the plane in the interline shed.

== Essentially he had to know where to put his device, but as I keep saying this is a joint CIA/Iranian operation and that can easily be worked around.

If you're now agreeing that John Bedford chose AVE4041 more or less at random from a pool off rom a pool of containers, your theory has crashed and burned. Only one container from that pool was ever going to end up on PA103. It only works if he was obliged to choose that container, and there is no evidence at all that this was so. In fact there is good evidence that it wasn't, quite apart from the improbability and impracticality of the system you originally hypothesised.

== You keep forgetting that there's a load plan

Bedford made a statement and gave evidence, saying that he specifically remembered the container where he saw the mysterious suitcases was AVE 4041. His reason for remembering the number was that he was born in (19)40 and his wife was born in (19)41. If he had actually been following a rigid plan where he was obliged to locate AVE 4041 specifically for that purpose, don't you think he would have said so?

== But that's his mnemonic for remembering, not his choosing.

containers, your theory has crashed and burned. Only one container from that pool was ever going to end up on PA103.

== All the conatiners from that pool ended up on 103A because they recycle them as much as possible. When planning change plans as little as possible. It only works if he was obliged to choose that container, and there is no evidence at all that this was so. In fact there is good evidence that it wasn't, quite apart from the improbability and impracticality of the system you originally hypothesised.

== No get real.

Bedford made a statement and gave evidence, saying that he specifically remembered the container where he saw the mysterious suitcases was AVE 4041. His reason for remembering the number was that he was born in (19)40 and his wife was born in (19)41. If he had actually been following a rigid plan where he was obliged to locate AVE 4041 specifically for that purpose, don't you think he would have said so?

== No it's not what Bedford does. He just remembers AVE4041 because of the accidence of his and his wife's b'day

== Why don't you remember that my conspiracy theory is the only one being actively suppressed by the CIA in the Wikipedia, and they wouldm't waste breath on it if it were a no hoper!

 

[Rolfe]

So, Rolfe, you are arguing that the Newcastleton forest chip evidence is true?

No, of course not. I think that was planted, and well you know that.

I'm asking you to explain the physics you are relying on to declare that Mr. Claiden's chip behaved in a "non Newtonian" manner, which is an entirely separate question.

I simply go further than anyone else and say, if I can't believe the chip evidence, the impossible Toshiba cassettee recorder stuff and the Horton manual, why should I believe any of the so called evidence.

Provenance, my dear boy. Examination of the provenance of the MST-13 chip and the Horton manual fragment shows clearly when, where and who (probably) planted them. It didn't happen in Scotland, it happened in Kent. There is no evidence that anything was planted in Scotland, unless you can give me the physics of the Claiden chip assertion. I'm not holding my breath.

Remember Mr Parks says that in a brisant explosion there should have been no suitcase evidence, but suitcase evidence was found. What simpler to do that simply add a bit of fakery to the scene of the crime.

Mr. Parks is a raving lunatic conspiracy theorist, as anyone who reads his own account of his story can easily realise (as opposed to the sanitised version which appears elsewhere, I think in The Firm). As I have demonstrated in previous posts, the suitcase was blown to bits, and only bits were found - widely scattered as I said, and as far as I can see amounting to less than 10% of the case.

And I believe Mr McKee and some of his colleagues were done to death by others in the CIA. You should be able to work out whom.

Read "So no evil" and find the copy-editing error.
Of course it isn't evidence? Or is it.

Well, we're not talking about what you believe, we're talking about evidence. Which is getting pretty thin by the way. And I have no intention of reading an entire book on some bizarre Easter-egg hunt for a copy-editing error. If you have a point to make in that respect, make it.

Now look at the anecdote about the seizuare of Mr McKee's suitcase from a Lockerbie hillside not far from AVE4041 PA. The authorities were very angry indeed with Johnston's revelation in his book and offered him the opportunity to meet Mrs Thatcher if he would reveal his sources and when he refused to help them was precognosed as a witness.

I'd love to talk to him, but don't know how to get in contact.

I don't disbelieve that anecdote. However, as far as I can see, any suggestion that the suitcase was spacially related to any part of AVE4041 is purely your invention. If you didn't just make it up, then provide the source for the assertion please.

You even have the Johnston story mangled. He reported the McKee suitcase story on his radio programme. Radio Forth, it was. Immediately after the crash, while everyone was running around on adrenaline, not months or years afterwards. He says he had a visit from some very aerated policemen, who were very disturbed that he knew about it. He ignored them, and heard no more about it. (This makes sense, as cooler reflection obviously leads to the comclusion that the way to deal with this is to pretend it didn't happen, not to escalate it.)

I merely point out that your inferences from the story are entirely unsupported.

The point is that my synthesis is (a) no more unbelievable than others, who say the suitcase evidence is genuine (b) is a reasonable interpolation of the facts and (c) is not referred to in the conspiracy theories page for Pan Am 103, and (d) when I try to post there it disappears.

Yes, it is unbelievable. It relies on inferences which have no basis in fact.

Wikipedia doesn't like "original research". That's what you posting your own conspiracy theory is. You need to publish your theory elsewhere, then refer to it on the wiki page. Now that you've actually published on the internet, you may find that does it. However, you may still have a problem if an editor perceives that you're citing your own self-published work. (I got away with citing my own publication on a wiki page, but it wasn't self-published, it appeared in an actual journal.) It might go down better if someone else posted an entry of the page citing your article.

It's your job to explain what's going on. I've made my pitch and with very few small alterations I shall incorporate there is only innuendo against my theory.

No, I don't have to explain what I can't explain. Nobody is under any obligation to accept your preposterous tale just because they don't know what really did happen.

Are you interested in solving Lockerbie, Rolfe, or is it simple entertainment for a rather lonely blogger who has nothing else in their life to do?

Be fair, find an error and I'll address it. A gap in bot an error it's an inference waiting to be confirmed.

I don't blog, I've told you that before. And if I choose to investigate Lockerbie rather than solving crossword puzzles or knitting, that's my business.

We've found a lot of errors, and I see no sign at all that you're prepared to address them seriously.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Then why do you doubt Mr Marquise?

Why wouldn't I doubt him? He can't back up his assertions either. And he's started lying to journalists, too.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Prove that statement!

I've explained it to you twice.

Bedford was in the interline shed, some distance from the baggage buildup shed where the bulk of the luggage was received and all the other containers were loaded. Only one container from the interline shed ended up on PA103.

You must know this, after 20 years studying the case!

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

== That's a long while. They made him reconstruct a scenario which I think became muddled in his mind when
produced as evidence 12 years later.

Two weeks is not a long time to elapse before a witness interview, in something as memorable as this. And bear in mind that Bedford knew within five hours that a plane he had prepared a baggage container for had come down in highly suspicious circumstances. That's easily soon enough to fix it in his mind that it was that afternoon and not an earlier one when he'd noticed the mysterious suitcases and spoken to Sulkash Kamboj about them.

Once the initial statement is made, the time elapsed before the trial is less important. Though as I say he did go through it all in 1990 as well.

No logic in that conclusion, Rolfe. For the story of Bedford's suitcase would have fitted in but not well with a PFLP GC interference at Heathrow, and eventually MI5 did not want the Heathrow story at all, but were stuck with the Bedford story.

== Prompted.

Are you alleging that the Met officers who interviewed Bedford on 4th January, before most of the bronze suitcase pieces had been picked up from the grass and certainly before they had been determined to be the "primary suitcase", were at that time under orders to induce the witness to "remember" a mysterious brown samsonite suitcase in AVE4041?

Oh, come on. Get real.

What is MHOP. I really don't like all this jargon. I try to make my story as simple as possible to help people like you, and you go and bury it in jargon.

Jargon is useful when discussing technical issues. It saves time. In this case:
MIHOP = Make It Happen On Purpose, that is, the authorities actively caused the incident.
LIHOP = Let It Happen On Purpose, that is the authorities knew what was planned and chose not to intervene to prevent it.

Rolfe.

 

[CharlesNorrie]

I believe you will find that the officer who initially interviewed Mr Manly was from SB, who are under the thumb of MI5.

From the very start it was a very political investigation and the Bedford story came out and the manly story did not. Why? The Manly story would have destroyed the attempt to convict Magrahi!

Thank you for MHOP and LIHOP.

But like many conspiracy theorists you believe that "they" know everything. "They" don't.

The "they" in this case ia a political motivated group at the heart of the CIA, of whom VC was head or deputy called the CTC, which does not stand for Cyclists' Touring Club, but Counter Terrorism Centre. Even these gents will only have a hazy understanding of what's going on, but probably Theodore Shackley, the "Blond Ghost" now dead had to know everything.

But probably not the details of things like Orkin. (whose real name I know).

So I don't like jargon, because it has a habit of becoming imprecise.

 

[realdon]

I have been following the Jref 103 threads, Rolfe, Caustic and others under the radar for a year or so and have not had time or much to add.

Technical daftness I just have to comment on!

Charles in your blog you state the following regarding your secondary explosion theory

"To conceal the existence of the CIA device, the bombs needed to trigger around the same time. However, they were in different locations on the plane. So the insurance bomb had to be triggered manually. There would have been a CIA agent on the ground where he could receive a clear radar signal from Flight 103 – probably halfway between Lockerbie and Shanwick."

So this CIA agent is hiding under a bush in the darkness of Dumfriesshire waiting to receive "a clear radar signal from flight 103"

Can you explain what equipment this spook had to receive this on?
A handy briefcase 007 issue? In 1988 Mobile radar capable of tracking an aircraft at 35000ft would consist of a number of Military trucks and bulky equipment with a bunch of people to set it up.

Google images of moble radar for examples

So the CIA had a deal going with the Britsh army or someone to use one that happened
to be in the area at the time. The spook observes the 1st explosion and then using his 1988 mobile phone or perhaps a more secure communication system
that would not be swamped by the kilowatts of RF being spewed out by the radar. He dials the pager service to have a message sent to the pager tiggered bomb on 103!

And all this happens in your stated 19.5 seconds after the first explosion.

I'm sorry but this to me is not possible. You need to look more deeply at this
assumption

David

 

[Rolfe]

Really, I am interested in mechanisms and coincidental stuff about birth years, I just don't buy.

If Bedford was working to an SOP which required him to find and use AVE4041 specifically, and no other container, why did he come out with the stuff about birth-dates rather than simply saying that was the number of the container he had to select?

I believe the break in was used to stick a device on AVE4041 PA, or just possibly AVN7511 PA.

As I said, your beliefs are your own affair, but when you share them here you'll be asked for evidence to support them.

Why do you now introduce AVN7511? McKee's suitcase wasn't in 7511, which originated from the baggage build-up hall and contained luggage from the Heathrow check-in desks. If you're changing your story to suggest that the "Iranian gent" didn't go anywhere near the interline shed but in fact went to the baggage build-up shed to sabotage 7511, then you have to realise that's a huge alteration in your proposed scenario.

If it was 7511 from the baggage build-up shed that was sabotaged, what would be the point of the Met officers who were interviewing the baggage handler who only loaded 4041 in the interline shed being instructed to influence him to produce a false memory about a brown Samsonite suitcase?

What would be the point of sabotaging 7511, then using the (alleged) transponder in McKee's suitcase to locate 4041 for the purposes of planting evidence?

You're really not thinking this through.

Then please go and read the AAIB report again and note how it covers up the origin of the northerly debris trail.

I already told you, I'm not going on Easter-egg hunts through lengthy documents. If you have a point to make regarding the AAIB report, make it. I hope it's better than the one where you interpret the statement that there was only one bomb to imply that the inspectors knew there were two but were cleverly hiding this knowledge behind particular wording.

Yet Peter Claiden refers to the blast from the device and Mick Charles as massive. Are they talking of the same explosion. I think not.

In Johnston book a witness sees a massive explosion high in the air just to the south of Lockerbie. This could not be the IED in the forehold as they went of 14 seconds and 3.1 km further south to the best of my analysis.

A pound of Semtex can produce quite a bang, anyone watching the footage of the Wyatt tests can see that. Why don't you ask Jim Swire though? He was an army explosives operative when he did his National Service, before he went to medical school.

And Robbie the Pict has an eyewitness who claims to have seen the intact plane crossing the A74 from west to east at only 500 feet before crash-landing on Lockerbie. Eyewitness testimony is frequently mistaken.

The CIA device went off in the CRAF hold. Please explain why they were 14 seconds apart. I have a reasoned argument, and I'll have you know I can prove my theory is being suppressed.

Oh dear, I'm sorry you're being suppressed. But here you are, discussing it freely on an open forum, and your article is still where you put it, unsabotaged, as far as I can see. Please explain why what was 14 seconds apart from what?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Charles, for goodness sake learn how to use the quote function before you get suspended for what you're doing! I've italicised the bits you yourself were quoting, to try to sort this mess out.

Not arguing with you there, although bear in mind that the baggage containers weren't chained together in any order, they were unconnected. How you think this is advancing your theory I can't imagine.
== Please try to think imaginatively.

I'm distressingly literal. You'll have to explain yourself.

Also, there's no possible way that Heathrow at 4pm in the afternoon at a busy time of year could be compared to "a not very busy day" anywhere.
There would have been a small amount of stuff placed in VE4041 PA during the day, some from the South African flight in the morning, some from people who were having a break in London.
There will be the baggage transfers on the tarmac from 103A. McKee had flown in early and his bag would have gone in.

That's a complete non-sequitur. Your theory asks us to accept that the container could be reliably identified as early as midnight as being the container that would later be chosen to perform that function. Except that you seem to be back-trcking on that claim.

My problem is rather like can I predict which checkout a particular trolley will be used from position in the stack. No you can't really and that's like the 13R 14L confusion. But the trolleys at the head of the stack will go the checkut (rather like finding a location in the baggage hold).

Simple concept isn't it.

No, not really.

You started by asserting that your "Iranian gent" whom you believe broke into the airside area at

== The break in is proved. It was discovered just after midnight by Mr Manly. He called it the worst security breach in his 17 year career with BAA.

Agreed. But nobody knows who broke in or what if anything they introduced or removed at that time.

midnight knew exactly which container to sabotage in the certain knowledge, 18 hours in advance of the flight leaving, that this container would be both present at the airport then, and destined to be on PA103 at 6pm.

== Yes that's perfectly reasonable. The run of containers had been offloaded from the flight into London from NY the afternoon they day before.

You're making it up again. You're back to your theory of a rigid sequence of containers circulating eternally in a pre-determined cycle, with long periods of inactive storage between their designated flights. You have no evidence this was the case, and as it's an unworkable system it doesn't seem likely you've hit on the actual pattern of working.

And what "run of containers" would that be? You're forgetting again that all but one of the containers on PA103 originated from the baggage build-up shed, while AVE4041 was the only one which originaled from the interline shed.

You said he was specifically looking for AVE4041 for that reason. You also required this to be the case, because your hypothesis involved that particular container (the one with Tiny McKee's suitcase transferred from the Larnaca flight in it) being traceable by your postulated transponder in that suitcase.

== AVE4041 PA became that day the 1st class baggage container. Mr McKee was big and justified the leg room I suspect to need to travel first.

No, wrong. AVE 4041 was designated the container to take the interline luggage from the earlier flights, and then to be used for the onward Frankfurt baggage when PA103A eventually landed. There was some separation of the Frankfurt baggage depending on whether it was headed for New York or Detroit, and whether it was First Class or not, with some of it being loaded loose and not in a container at all, but I admit I'm slightly hazy about these details.

If you have more detailed information which says differently, please cite the source for this.

You based this on a theory that the baggage containers circulated in a regular, rigid, pre-planned pattern, with the baggage staff obliged to find exactly the right container for the plane they were about to load.

== There is a high degree of predictable regularity in container operation, yes

To the point where it's an absolute certainty which is the single container already sitting in the Heathrow interline shed at midnight, which will go on sitting there until it's definintely going to be the one used for the 6pm JFK flight? No, you have no evidence to prove this at all.

You postulated that Bedford had to select 4041 for that job, because it and only it was the designated container, which had been waiting (idle and taking up space) overnight and all day, just for that purpose.

== Bedford is a complete red herring, except in as far as he would have had to label the containers according to the loading plan, posssible prepared days in advance.

Bedford was the person who pulled out AVE4041 from the group of waiting containers and labelled it up for PA103 interline baggage, so he's not a red herring by any stretch of the imagination. You are sometimes asserting that he had a plan which required him to choose that container and no other, and sometimes agreeing that he might have chosen any of the waiting empty containers in the shed. Make up your mind.

I'm pleased to see that you're know acknowledging this wouldn't have been the case, but you have to realise that this torpedoes your entire hypothesis.

== I don't know what you're saying. You are being very dim.

Well, one of us is, that's for sure.

Let's look at what you're now saying. You're altering your suggestion to the "Iranian gent" merely having to select (with certainty, remember) any container which will eventually be loaded on PA103. Just how is he going to do that, 18 hours in advance?

I repeat, baggage going on Maid of the Seas came from two different places in the airport - the baggage buildup shed, and the interline shed. The vast majority of it came from the former source, where the luggage belonging to passengers checking in "off the street" at Heathrow was sent. Most of the passengers on the plane were in that category.

== We are dealing with AVE4041 PA which only happened to contain first class baggage. It would have been off first and 1st class passengers don't like to wait.

Please cite your source for this. As far as my information is concerned, it is incorrect. That container is usually alleged to contain all the interline baggage which arrived over the afternoon, and it's said to have had about ten cases in total in it when PA103A arrived. If these were only first-class cases, where did the cases of the second-class interline passengers go?

There was some separation of the PA103A luggage, as far as I can see because there was a bit too much for the remainder of the space in the container. There were 49 passengers in total on PA103A heading for the USA, as far as I recall. Something about first-class and/or Detroit baggage being loaded loose rather than in the container, I think, though I've seen at least one article that obviously had this muddled up.

Please reference the source you are using to declare what was and what wasn't first-class baggage.

However, that's not the category of luggage that was implicated. The implicated container, AVE4041, was the only one on that plane which originated from the interline shed. The one Tiny McKee's suitcase was presumably in, because he flew into Heathrow from Larnaca rather than checking in there de novo.

== Remember it's first calss.

No, I think you've got that wrong. I await your clarification of your source.

This, by the way, is the apparent reason for the firm insistence from early on in the investigation that "the bomb did not originate at Heathrow". Once the container containing the bomb suitcase had been identified as the one carrying only luggage from connecting flights, there was a collective sigh of relief and a decision to pass the buck back to Frankfurt (where most of that luggage originated).

== It was MI5's part of the opeartion. MI5 did not want amother Heathrow security scandal. Neither did Frankfurt so it had to be offloaded on Luqa (or Cyprus or Cairo as Fraser says in his daming interview in the Gideon Levy film)

Indeed. One wonders why it took them quite so long to do the offloading....

Now think about what you're saying here. The "Iranian gent" had to sabotage the exact container which would later be loaded with Tiny McKee's suitcase, according to your scenario - not just any old container that would end up on PA103. To do that, of course, he would have to identify that single container that would be chosen for the plane in the interline shed.

== Essentially he had to know where to put his device, but as I keep saying this is a joint CIA/Iranian operation and that can easily be worked around.

No, you're completely struggling on this. Unless Bedford was working to a pre-determined plan that required him to root out AVE4041 wherever it happened to be and use that container specifically for that job, you're sunk.

If you're now agreeing that John Bedford chose AVE4041 more or less at random from a pool off rom a pool of containers, your theory has crashed and burned. Only one container from that pool was ever going to end up on PA103. It only works if he was obliged to choose that container, and there is no evidence at all that this was so. In fact there is good evidence that it wasn't, quite apart from the improbability and impracticality of the system you originally hypothesised.

== You keep forgetting that there's a load plan

And do you have a copy of that load plan? Do you know that AVE4041 was designated in advance as the container that Bedford had to find and use for that job? No, you don't.

Bedford made a statement and gave evidence, saying that he specifically remembered the container where he saw the mysterious suitcases was AVE 4041. His reason for remembering the number was that he was born in (19)40 and his wife was born in (19)41. If he had actually been following a rigid plan where he was obliged to locate AVE 4041 specifically for that purpose, don't you think he would have said so?

== But that's his mnemonic for remembering, not his choosing.

Indeed. But if he'd had to hold the number in his head while he searched for that specific container among all the others, he'd have been a lot more likely to remember it for that reason. And he never once made any mention of this?

containers, your theory has crashed and burned. Only one container from that pool was ever going to end up on PA103.

== All the conatiners from that pool ended up on 103A because they recycle them as much as possible. When planning change plans as little as possible.

You're making no sense. Bedford was in the interline shed, and he picked a container which was already in the interline shed - he didn't have to go elsewhere to find it. Only one container from the interline shed - AVE4041 - ended up on PA103. The other containers on the plane were packed in the baggage build-up shed.

Ergo, the rest of the group of containers from which he selected AVE4041 did not go on PA103.

It only works if he was obliged to choose that container, and there is no evidence at all that this was so. In fact there is good evidence that it wasn't, quite apart from the improbability and impracticality of the system you originally hypothesised.

== No get real.

Bedford made a statement and gave evidence, saying that he specifically remembered the container where he saw the mysterious suitcases was AVE 4041. His reason for remembering the number was that he was born in (19)40 and his wife was born in (19)41. If he had actually been following a rigid plan where he was obliged to locate AVE 4041 specifically for that purpose, don't you think he would have said so?

== No it's not what Bedford does. He just remembers AVE4041 because of the accidence of his and his wife's b'day

So, you agree Bedford wasn't following a plan that obliged him to find AVE4041 for that particular job? Or do you? If he wasn't, then he selected it at random, and the rest of the group from which he selected it didn't go on PA103. Because that was the only container in the interline shed that went on PA103A.

Which means that there was no possible way anyone could have determined at midnight that this container was the one McKee's suitcase would go on.

== Why don't you remember that my conspiracy theory is the only one being actively suppressed by the CIA in the Wikipedia, and they wouldm't waste breath on it if it were a no hoper!

Wikipedia editors don't like people who promote their own pet hobby-horses. It's as simple as that.

Rolfe.

 

[CharlesNorrie]

If Bedford was working to an SOP which required him to find and use AVE4041 specifically, and no other container, why did he come out with the stuff about birth-dates rather than simply saying that was the number of the container he had to select?

Quite simple. Lots of people remember things in such ways. I remember the passphrase on my iphone because it's Shakespeare's year of death.


Why do you now introduce AVN7511? McKee's suitcase wasn't in 7511, which originated from the baggage build-up hall and contained luggage from the Heathrow check-in desks. If you're changing your story to suggest that the "Iranian gent" didn't go anywhere near the interline shed but in fact went to the baggage build-up shed to sabotage 7511, then you have to realise that's a huge alteration in your proposed scenario.

Why don't you look at the damage diagrams in the AAIB report. I haven't got to the bottom of them yet and it's problematic when I do, but I still trying to learn, rather than criticising uselessly.


I already told you, I'm not going on Easter-egg hunts through lengthy documents. If you have a point to make regarding the AAIB report, make it. I hope it's better than the one where you interpret the statement that there was only one bomb to imply that the inspectors knew there were two but were cleverly hiding this knowledge behind particular wording.

What's wrong with good civil service wording. I'm quite practised at it myself.


I rather expect my critics to spend a little time reading and thinking about stuff rather than arguing from a position of incredulity.

A pound of Semtex can produce quite a bang, anyone watching the footage of the Wyatt tests can see that. Why don't you ask Jim Swire though? He was an army explosives operative when he did his National Service, before he went to medical school.

What's this about. Nobody is denying Pan Am 103 was destroyed at least in part by a Semtex explosive. And a little bit of knowledge gained in National Service, does not really count as expertise.

And Robbie the Pict has an eyewitness who claims to have seen the intact plane crossing the A74 from west to east at only 500 feet before crash-landing on Lockerbie. Eyewitness testimony is frequently mistaken.

And Robbie the Pict has an eyewitness who claims to have seen the intact plane crossing the A74 from west to east at only 500 feet before crash-landing on Lockerbie. Eyewitness testimony is frequently mistaken.

Robbie the Pict is frequently mistaken. I do not regard him as a reliable analyst.

Oh dear, I'm sorry you're being suppressed. But here you are, discussing it freely on an open forum, and your article is still where you put it, unsabotaged, as far as I can see. Please explain why what was 14 seconds apart from what?

But the fact it is being suppressed in the interesting thing. Why?

Oh Rolfe, you've got to do something for yourself. I'm looking at Fig B-4 od the AAIB report right now and it shows two debris trails, 2.4cm apart, which I think is a scaled 3.1km. At 800 kph, though the plane is slowing it would have taken 14 seconds between the appearance of the two trails.

Two trails, two explosions.

The norhern one is shorter and more densely populated (from the text in the report) than the southern one. Hence it was bigger and lower.

Essentially hthe diagrams come from radar plots and the radr is cycling at 11 second intervals.

So 1st explosion happens. At 19:02:53 or 4 it is illumiated by the radar and Topp cries out. My Cia man pushes the trigger on the package bomb and seven seconds later (pager connection timer) the package bomb is detonated.

The CIA man has of course got a radar set and seen the first explosion because (a) its only on primary radar not secondary and (b) Topp sees 5 blobs (actually 4).

Then we get the second pass at 19:03:04 or thereabouts, followed by the report of crash and fire on the ground and the seismic report, calculated by AAIB later.

Please you've got to come up with an answer to why to debris trails. Hand waving just won't do. And I can bear a lazy investigator

 

[CharlesNorrie]

Rolfe,

I am not really interested in learning the silly protocols of a fairly worthless blog site or form. I have standard ways of replying to comments, which are very easy to follow and straightforward.

Charles

 

[Mashuna]

Rolfe,

I am not really interested in learning the silly protocols of a fairly worthless blog site or form. I have standard ways of replying to comments, which are very easy to follow and straightforward.

Charles

If your post #77 is any indication, you really don't.

 

[realdon]

The CIA man has of course got a radar set and seen the first explosion because (a) its only on primary radar not secondary and (b) Topp sees 5 blobs (actually 4).

Charles as per my above post how do you know as fact that he has a radar set?

Radar sets do not come in neat hand held packages

David