Lockerbie: London Origin Theory

[Buncrana]

I really don't know quite where you'd begin with that huge Times article. There's so much that is correct with some of the finer details of the operation that was undertaken by the PFLP-GC in Germany, but then on the most fundamental points, like the type of timers known to used in Khreesat's devices, any implication of a Heathrow ingestion onto PA103 is nothing more than a fleeting thought.

Incredible.

There's still talk (including some perhaps innocent or deliberately confusing) over Ms Noonan's clothing and it's closeness to the explosion and that Ms Coyle's items and bag had been identified by her family. It is also widely acknowledged by all at this stage in the investigation that we are on the hunt for an IED which was contained in a 'brown Samsonite hard-shell suitcase'.

This concerted effort to suppress information and dampen-down any suspicion or spotlight of the investigation falling on Heathrow didn't just begin with the evidence and statements provided by John Bedford on the 3rd and 9th Jan not being properly followed up; it began on 21st Dec. For it was on this date that began an active and successful effort to conceal the report of a break-in at Heathrow's T3 gate for nearly 13 years until late 2001 during Megrahi's first appeal.

And those two areas most certainly fell under the remit of the Met investiagtion.

News about a security breach hours before PA103 left Heathrow, pretty astounding as it was in itself given the magnitude of the attack on the UK and US citizens, only eventually coming to light after the Heathrow security guard himself contacted the legal team. By an awful twist of fate this new evidence was revealed to the world on September 11th 2001. Only thanks to Mr Manly conscientiousness was this information ever revealed. Sadly he died a short time after.

However, returning back, it is Mowat's determination and the FAI held during late 1990 and early 1991 that is actually worse than the Judges conclusions at Zeist in some respects. Mowat was afforded all the information at the time, and some of which was later denied to the Zeist court. Except the break-in of course which no one knew of. But the rest is all there:

• Primary Suitcase is a Brown Samsonite in AVE4041
• John Bedford witnesses brown Samsonite in AVE4041
• Unresolved Discrepancy and Mysterious Ingestion into 4041
• No Heathrow Interline Passenger in possession of brown samsonite
• Brown Samsonite remains in original position throughout loading.
• Explosion Estimated at 10" from Base/Floor of AVE4041

The fact that whatever the brown Samsonite was that Bedford saw, it was certainly illigitimate, which the Zeist Court was never forced to accept as irrefutable evdience illicited by DC Henderson. Nor was Zeist allowed to consider the implications posed for the Crown's argument if that bag described by Bedford as a 'brown Samsonite' was never moved from it position in AVE4041 as told by baggage handler Amarjirit Sidhu.

Like the break-in, had it not been for the FAI, John Bedford's evidence was being ignored while sitting there in plain sight. And by the FAI, it was sitting in plain sight of everyone involved. And still, not that even that would affect the determination of the FAI, the subsequent investigation for a further 10 yeras, and ultimately the conclusion at Zeist.

 

[Rolfe]

This concerted effort to suppress information and dampen-down any suspicion or spotlight of the investigation falling on Heathrow didn't just begin with the evidence and statements provided by John Bedford on the 3rd and 9th Jan not being properly followed up; it began on 21st Dec. For it was on this date that began an active and successful effort to conceal the report of a break-in at Heathrow's T3 gate for nearly 13 years until late 2001 during Megrahi's first appeal.

And those two areas most certainly fell under the remit of the Met investiagtion.

News about a security breach hours before PA103 left Heathrow, pretty astounding as it was in itself given the magnitude of the attack on the UK and US citizens, only eventually coming to light after the Heathrow security guard himself contacted the legal team. By an awful twist of fate this new evidence was revealed to the world on September 11th 2001. Only thanks to Mr Manly conscientiousness was this information ever revealed. Sadly he died a short time after.

The timeline is slightly odder than that. Here's the official story of what happened, from an email forwarded to me.

1. In January 1989 BAA security notified the Metropolitan police that an insecurity had been detected within terminal 3 at Heathrow during the early hours of 21 December 1988.
2. The Metropolitan police passed this evidence to the Police Incident Room at Lockerbie and Actions were raised to investigate this matter.
3. During the course of this investigation Mr Manly, the BAA Security Team Leader who discovered the insecurity, was interviewed by an officer from the Metropolitan Police and a statement was obtained from him. The interview took place on 31 January 1989. A number of other witnesses were also traced and interviewed regarding the insecurity.
4. Mr Manly’s statement was passed to the police incident room at Lockerbie and was registered on the HOLMES system on 2 February 1989. This statement and those from other witnesses identified At Heathrow were considered by enquiry officers at the time in the context of a range of emerging strands of evidence.

This tells us a couple of things. First, that the police (Met or D&G) were not pro-active in investigating Heathrow security at the time of the disaster - Manly's report was unearthed by BAA themselves who passed it to the Met.

Second, it tells us that the Met was not running its own investigation into Heathrow, because all they did was pass the information to Lockerbie. Lockerbie then said, well kinda interesting, would you mind getting a statement from this bloke. Which the Met then did, but again only to send it straight back up to Lockerbie.

Lockerbie entered the statement into Holmes, and it was never heard of again.

I remember Jim Swire telling of a press conference called that Tuesday lunchtime to publicise the discovery of Manly's evidence. The press seemed interested at first, then they suddenly melted away. They'd heard about what was happening in New York.

Megrahi himself said of that day that first, he was horrified, and then second, he knew there was no chance of his appeal being granted. What western judge was going to allow the appeal of a Moslem convicted of an aircraft terrorist attack, after that? It seems awfully cynical, but when you look at the appeal process at Camp Zeist from 2001 into early 2002, it kind of looks as if he might have had a point.

Rolfe.

 

[Buncrana]

Quite interesting exchanges there Rolfe. So, it seems that the Met and the D&G Police were jointly working on the investigation, between LICC and Heathrow although headed by Orr who had been drafted in from Strathclyde. However, as alluded to in those exchanges, it also appears the Mets anti-terrorist branch – given this was an IED on a flight from London – seem to have had some oversight of the elements of the investigation.

The Independent

January 7 1989, Saturday

The Lockerbie Disaster: Painstaking effort to track Lockerbie killers

BYLINE: NICK COHEN, HEATHER MILLS.

[…] Although there was rivalry between the Scots and the Metropolitan Police as to who should take charge of the Lockerbie investigation, Chief Superintendent John Orr, the senior CID officer in Strathclyde, was appointed head of the worldwide inquiry.

The 43-year-old is widely respected. He has a degree in forensic science and is a fellow of the Institute of British management. But he will clearly be guided by those with more experience in counter-terrorism. In reality, much of the responsibility will rest with Commander George Churchill-Coleman, the head of the Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad, SO13.

Eighteen days after the explosion, only one hard fact is on the record: it was a bomb. There are, in some cases, good reasons for the secrecy. The West Germans are refusing to name the public prosecutor who is leading the inquiries in Frankfurt. German terrorists have already assassinated a federal prosecutor and narrowly failed to wipe out another, his staff and his offices, with rockets.

The Frankfurt prosecutor will gather the results of the investigation by members of the 3,300- strong Federal Criminal Office (BKA). It has immensely sophisticated computer equipment. The computers came up with the address of a Red Army Faction terrorist when police simply fed in a series of assumptions - he would live in flats with an underground car park, be near the motorway network and would pay his water and fuel bills in cash.

In America, Pan Am 103, is 'the priority case'. At least three government agencies - the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) - are assisting in the investigation.

Charles Steinmetz, of the FBI, said its largest contribution until now had been in identifying victims of the crash through fingerprinting. The crash has led to unusual technical difficulties. Fingerprints cannot be lifted directly from some of the bodies, and have had to be taken from parts of the cabin the victims touched before the crash. So far 72 of the 216 victims have been identified this way.

Mr Steinmetz added that the British and US authorities had been 'cross-detailing agents and scientists'. British personnel are being sent to the US to work with their American counterparts and vice-versa. The FBI emphasised that they were working under British control.

[…]

They, MI5 and MI6 will report to the anti-terrorist squad in London. Working alongside the squad is a small FBI team, which set up its own secure lines to Washington. It will also make use of Europe's anti-terrorist communication lines - the Trevi network, known as Corea, and designed to enable one anti-terrorist police force to communicate directly and secretly with another.

The network - one of the first measures introduced by the Trevi group of interior ministers in charge of security and the fight against terrorism - is said to have been invaluable in amassing intelligence from Europe. Lockerbie will dominate a meeting in Madrid of the Trevi group at the end of this month.

Churchill-Coleman made a name for himself, in much the same way that Feraday and Hayes did, by tracking down and convicting folk behind some of the Irish Republican bombings in London during the late 1980’s.

Here’s another article here from 1986 about his involvement in another investigation around a potential bombing of an aircraft leaving from Heathrow: http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1986/P...Boyfriend/id-ef9d97dd0aa90920763d86f1eabe2c84

I’m giving some thoughts to how the timeline of events and the investigation would have roughly panned-out. And I think it’s always worth keeping in mind that AVE4041 was identified in the very early stages as central to the investigation.

Within a week of 103 bombing, before 1989 was even upon us, AVE4041 should, and seemingly did, allow investigators to narrow their enquiries around this specific baggage container. This must’ve been a huge help to investigators as only a few handlers were directly involved in this baggage tins loading and security before 103 departed.

Better still, it allowed investigators to focus on a small number of Heathrow Interline bags, knowing the rest of the bags belonged to Frankfurt Interline passengers. Nevertheless, by New Year, investigators are in the position of being able to focus on about 45/50 items of passenger baggage including only a small number from Heathrow.

I’d imagine the relevant details of passengers on 103, including those who had checked-in at Heathrow, those who were joining from 103A, and those who arrived at Heathrow via other flights was known within 24hrs. Rumours quickly abounded that a bomb could be the only answer for the sudden and catastrophic crash of a 747 Jumbo with no indication of problems just minutes before or any mayday calls made.

Once AVE4041 was identified as the baggage tin that had experienced obvious explosive damage, the investigation was stepped up and a number of statements from Heathrow staff and baggage handlers are taken.

The small number of Heathrow Interline baggage was perhaps not precisely deduced as yet – they would have been aware that 17 passengers and 14 items of baggage were listed as Heathrow Interline for PA103 – although the investigation would quickly know that nearly half of these passengers had no checked luggage. For passengers who were Heathrow Interline and did have transferring hold baggage, the investigators now tallied the items of Heathrow origin baggage that could potentially have been in AVE4041.

So, 14 items of baggage apparently.

I think it was quickly picked-up that Ms Hall’s bag, being so early in the interline shed, had actually travelled on earlier Pan Am flight from Heathrow and not PA103; 13 Bags.

The day after the disaster 1 bag belonging to Mr Peirce and 1 belonging to Mr O’Connor, both listed as interline passengers with checked luggage for PA103, are discovered in the Interline baggage shed; 11 Heathrow bags to account for in AVE4041.

After taking statements from Sidhu, Sahota, Bedford, Parmar and Kamboj in late Dec and early Jan, this should have enough for investigators to realise that between Kamboj and Sidhu statements, there was, due to these bags arriving at the shed after Bedford had taken 4041 away, likely 5 items of the listed Heathrow interline bags that weren’t actually put into AVE4041. Going on the list provided, it wouldn’t be obvious which passenger baggage this was, although that passenger’s arrival at Heathrow would provide some idea.

However, with the recovery of debris still on-going around Lockerbie and the Scottish borders, no one could be 100% certain whose bags these were, but given they arrived at the interline shed, we can assume at this stage they were meant to be bound for AVE4041 ; that’s now 6 Heathrow interline bags to account for.

During this period a reconstruction of AVE4041 shows severe damage sustained in its lower left side into the overhang section of the baggage container. Meanwhile, in the middle of all this, they have already been presented with, by John Bedford head loader for AVE4041, an unusual instance relating to some baggage in this container.

Bedford has already brought to the attention of investigators an instance of an unaccounted introduction of perhaps two suitcases, one noted as a brown Samsonite, and its position in AVE4041 described. Further suspicion should have been raised in the clear discrepancy of how this bag or these bags were loaded during Bedford’s absence. Bedford says Kamboj told him he loaded it, and this is denied.

Only 3 staff dealt with this aspect of 4041’s loading and the very fact that numerous subsequent statements were taken from these guys shows that the investigation was only too aware of their importance.

So, investigators have 6 legitimate Heathrow interline bags to reconcile – and, of course, the noting by John Bedford of a ‘brown Samsonite’ amongst these bags. What we need to wait for now is a reconciliation of these passengers and the types of luggage they were in possession of, and more information from forensics about the bomb. Was this 'brown samsonite' included as part of these six legitimate bags - or is it in addition to the 6 bags?

By mid-February, details of the latter start to emerge, and by March John Orr is mentioning ‘7 bags’ in baggage container 4041. This statement also suggests the investigation were well advanced in deducing how many bags, through the aforementioned lists and now loading reconstructions of AVE4041 by Bedford and Sidhu, were in AVE4041 before the Frankfurt luggage was loaded. ‘All the floor space was taken-up’: 5 suitcases upright along the back, and two flat on the floor in-front, the left one a ‘brown Samsonite’. Uncertainty surrounds this specific case’s loading.

Surely there was a team looking at, filtering, and highlighting areas of note in the statements. With a focus on the relatively small staff that were working directly with AVE4041 and its baggage. You know, er, investigation and enquiry.

It is announced to the public in March that a ‘brown Samsonite suitcase’ housed the IED in container AVE4041 which had brought down PA103 resulting in the deaths of 270 people. Now, you or I might reasonably think, well on this information, there’s a very plausible reason to go back to Heathrow, and follow-up the almighty lead that should be obvious to everyone – or anyone – or whoever was looking over these statements. Where all the statements being supplied? Where some marked as ‘unimportant’? What the hell happened?

Nothing much really. The investigation seemingly ploughed on, much was being made of the radio cassette, the clothing, and of course everyone by now is on the hunt for a ‘brown Samsonite suitcase’. Seriously. But absolutely no one, not one God damn person, even so much as mentions ‘Heathrow’ and ‘brown Samsonite’ in the same breathe. Yet it’s there, in the statements, the whole time. Sure the German’s were shouting ‘Heathrow’, but only because everyone was thinking ‘Khreesat device’, which was perfectly reasonable given 103’s last flight time of 38mins. Still, the only reference of a ‘brown Samsonite suitcase’ is coming from the forensic labs at Rarde, and how it is this that is the primary suitcase.

Meanwhile, as John Orr points his finger increasing towards Frankfurt, DC Derek Henderson is busy compiling a reconciliation of the passengers and baggage who had been unfortunate enough to travel on 103. His investigation put paid to any theory of a unsuspecting mule or bag-switch by handlers: no one travelling on Pan Am 103 was known to be in possession of the type of suitcase that contained the primary device.

Nothing more is heard of Heathrow or John Bedford and by late summer 1989 the full weight of the investigation is centred on Malta. Never mind the brown Samsonite at Heathrow, we got clothing found around the bomb which has come from Malta – so the bomb must have come from there. And that, essentially, is the thrust of the investigation from here on.

Stinks to high heaven would be generous.

 

[Rolfe]

I note the date on that is the same day as the date on the BKA memo putting the explosion exactly where Bedford said the maroon Samsonite was placed.

I'm not sure about the timeline regarding involvement of the Met, but Crawford has a few things to say about it. The Met swanned up to Lockerbie thinking they would show these country bumpkins how it was done, and were sent away with a flea in their ear. I see no evidence at all that anyone higher up in the Met than Detective Sergeant had anything to do with this investigation. I don't think their counter-terrorism branch so much as opened a file.

All I can see is junior officers being used as gofers at Heathrow. Take statements. Go back take some more. Find out this and that. Then all that information was passed raw to Lockerbie. I don't know whether that article describes how it was going to be organised before Maggie said no not like that, or whether the journalists were just guessing how it would be, but I do not believe it was like that. (Notice that mention of "Corea" there - shades of Lester Coleman, very weird.)

We have a number of more-or-less inside accounts of the Lockerbie investigation. Johnston, Emerson & Duffy, Leppard, Crawford, Marquise. None of them even mentions Churchill-Coleman (any relation to Lester?) at all. None of them mentions the Met doing anything but taking a few statements. None of them mentions the anti-terrorism branch at all. There is literally no English input until you get to the RARDE team, and they are reporting directly to the D&G.

I have no idea if the Met would have figured it out if they had been involved, but they weren't. They just sent the statements north. DS Emerton was lying, or had been given false information by a superior to pass to Baz.

The two points I think are important in relation to what you said are first that the investigators weren't looking for a terrorist at Heathrow. Not at all. They didn't ask Kamboj or Parmar what they were doing while Bedford was on his break. They didn't ask if the container was always within their sight, or if they saw anyone loitering. They didn't even ask Bedford which suitcase was the one he was describing as brown. At all times it seems to be just a basic information-gathering evidence with no particular goal in mind except you can tell the bit where they ask several people if they saw Nicola Hall's case there in the morning. Nobody is trying to put any Heathrow-infiltration scenario together.

One of the reasons I originally dismissed the idea that Kamboj was complicit in loading the suitcase was that the cops would surely have investigated him within an inch of his life and he must have come up squeaky-clean. I still don't think he was complicit, but I note they didn't investigate him as a possible suspect/accessory at all. And what about the girl-friend? The one that was going to fly on 103 that evening and changed her shift? What was that all about? Nobody followed it up.

They're just not interested. Orr "eliminated Heathrow within three weeks of the bombing", and the rest was just routine.

My second point is that I think it took them quite a while to be sure exactly whose suitcases were in the loose-loaded batch. Arnaud Rubin's was the first of that batch, but they couldn't have been 100% certain it didn't get to the interline shed before Bedford got back. I think it wasn't until they identified the luggage and confirmed which items had no explosives contamination and were found along with the debris from the back of the plane that they could be sure. So the final tally of only six legitimate suitcases I think didn't come in until after they were well set on Malta.

I think Orr's statement of "seven" was taken from the 24th January reconstructions coming up with "probably seven", rather than having anything at all to do with the incoming passenger records or reconciliation. Also, there were examples of passengers who had luggage checked in not having that recorded on the paperwork. Kenneth Gibson for example. So they had to check up people like the Volkswagen executives to find out if they might have been carrying something - that seems to have involved talking to families and people who drove them to the airport and even other passengers who saw them board the incoming flights.

If anything, the investigators just assumed the bottom case would eventually reconcile to something, because after all everyone is telling us the explosion was on the second layer. Only the SIO and his immediate circle would have all the information, and the SIO was convinced it wasn't Heathrow, and wasn't even telling anyone else the details of what Bedford (or Manly) saw.

The BKA had a German summary of the statements, and as I said, Helge Tepp spotted the significance of what Bedford said, but when he enquired of Lockerbie whose case that had turned out to be, he got the brush-off.

It's the motive I don't get. All to protect BAA? I'm damn sure Orr didn't think of it on his own initiative though.

Rolfe.

 

[LittleSwan]

Henderson's other report is the one dealing only with the Heathrow interline luggage, and it seems to be quite simple. I constructed it into this table.

Passenger | Flight | From | Landed | No of items
Nicola Hall||Johannesburg |06.46|1*
Bernt Carlsson|BA391|Brussels|11.06|1
James Fuller||Hannover|14.31|0
Louis Marengo||Hannover|14.31|0
Charles McKee|CY504|Larnaca|14.34|2
Matthew Gannon|CY504|Larnaca|14.34|1
Ronald LaRiviere|CY504|Larnaca|14.34|0
Gregory Kosmowski |BD777|Birmingham|15.07|0
Robert Fortune||Amsterdam|15.18|0
Elia Stratis||Amsterdam|15.18|0
Michael Bernstein|BA701|Vienna|15.35|2
Arnaud Rubin|BA395|Brussels|16.15|1
Joseph Curry|BA603|Pisa|16.21|2
Peter Peirce|BA603|Pisa|16.21|3*
Daniel O'Connor|CY1354 |Larnaca|16.43|1*
James Stow||Geneva|16.34|0
Richard Cawley||Dusseldorf|16.57|0

That's 14 items in total from the 17 passengers. However, three of these items (asterisked) weren't on 103. Nicola Hall's case was sent on 101, because it was there so early and the baggage handlers just wanted shot of it. Daniel O'Connor's case "travelled to the USA on another flight", but that's all they say about it. One of Peter Peirce's items was also left behind and found at Heathrow later.

...

Rolfe.

This is very interesting. Some of you seem to be well informed. After reading this thread I still have some questions:

Is the quoted table from one of Derek Hendersons reports?

Where is the second brownish suitcase Bedford saw. Is it the leather suitcase found by Jim Wilson at his farm?

Is it possible that the two suitcases Bedford saw, were uncompanied cases coming from Larnaca and that one of the suitcases containing drugs was switched for the suitcase containing the bomb? Why sending drugs to Frankfurt first when there is a direct connection to Heathrow?

How many explosion damaged suitcases were found? If the bomb suitcase was on the second row, you have to find fragments of at least two secondary suitcases (one below and one on top of the primary suitcase). I believe they only found one: the blue american tourister.

 

[Rolfe]

This is very interesting. Some of you seem to be well informed. After reading this thread I still have some questions:

Is the quoted table from one of Derek Hendersons reports?

Yes. It's a compilation from a number of reports and witness statements, but the basis of it is Henderson's report on the Heathrow interline passengers' luggage. If you read further into the thread you'll find an updated version including extra information from a witness statement Buncrana identified. The order of arrival above isn't quite right.

Where is the second brownish suitcase Bedford saw. Is it the leather suitcase found by Jim Wilson at his farm?

I don't think there was a second brownish suitcase. I think Bedford mainly looked at the left-hand one, and bear in mind we only have colour vision at the centre of our visual field. I think the right-hand one was Charles McKee's dark grey Samsonite hardshell, and Bedford mistook the colour slightly due to his eye having been mainly caught by the odd "antique copper" finish on the left-hand one.

The right-hand suitcase would have been close enough to the explosion to suffer significant explosion damage. There is no other unidentified explosion-damaged suitcase that might have been the right-hand one, brown-ish hardshell or not. And even if the Jim Wilson story is true (and it's very hard to pin it down), the suitcase he saw was never reported as having been ripped apart by the explosion.

My "best guess" explanation for the second suitcase is that the terrorist, whoever he was, approached the container carrying the suitcase with the bomb packed asymmetrically along one side, intending to load it flat with that side as close into the lower part of the overhang as he could achieve. That would put the IED as close to the skin of the plane as possible. I hypothesise that he may have been slightly thrown to find all the cases in the container in an upright row across the back.

I think he kept to the plan, and put the Samsonite flat on the floor to the left, tucked as far into the overhang as possible, and then worried about the position. It may have looked a little odd, and there was nothing to prevent the hard shiny case sliding to the right - or being slid to the right by someone adding more luggage.

I think he then pulled the case that matched his suitcase most closely from the row at the back, and used it to fix the position of the bomb suitcase, preventing it from sliding to the right. I think he then rearranged the cases in the row at the back to some extent to disguise the fact that it was now one case fewer.

There is a small wrinkle here I don't entirely understand. According to the order of arrival, the cases in the back row, left to right, should have been as follows.

Carlsson - three Larnaca cases - two Bernstein cases

However, according to the pattern of damage, the order when the container was closed up was as follows.

Carlsson - two Bernstein cases - Gannon - McKee Tourister

This suggests a bigger rearrangement that I understand the reason for, or would have thought the terrorist would have wanted to risk. But it seems to have been done.

Is it possible that the two suitcases Bedford saw, were uncompanied cases coming from Larnaca and that one of the suitcases containing drugs was switched for the suitcase containing the bomb? Why sending drugs to Frankfurt first when there is a direct connection to Heathrow?

Hi! Welcome to the forum. Nice to see you here.

Not that I can tell. I've read all the witness statements from the Pan Am staff who were in the interline shed at the time, and there's nothing to substantiate that theory.

You are assuming drugs were sent at all. If they were, I don't see any particular reason for avoiding a flight with a stop-over. There were persistent rumours that Khaled Jaafar was acting as a drugs courier, and he died on the flight. I don't know if the rumours are true or not, but the circumstantial evidence is somewhat suspicious. If he was doing that, it was systematically covered up. If the Wilson story is true, I think that may be the explanation. It was a suitcase checked in by Jaafar, and the holdalls belonging to him which were recovered on the ground and were said to be his hold luggage, were actually cabin baggage.

I'm not persuaded this has anything to do with the introduction of the bomb.

How many explosion damaged suitcases were found? If the bomb suitcase was on the second row, you have to find fragments of at least two secondary suitcases (one below and one on top of the primary suitcase). I believe they only found one: the blue american tourister.

25, plus the bomb suitcase, so 26 in all. I'm not sure if McKee's other case is in that list, because it was only noted as having explosives contamination, not actual damage. I think it ended up on the right-hand end of the row along the back, which would have put it quite far from the explosion.

I entirely agree with you about the absence of a third pulverised suitcase. I think it's a crucial point. A point the defence should have stressed at trial, but didn't.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Here is the post with the full, correct version of the Heathrow interline luggage, in correct order of arrival. You may find it generally interesting, LittleSwan.

By the way, I think I realised why Orr said there were seven items in the container. This was late March 1989. The baggage handlers had established that there were seven items, in the reconstructions carried out in January. I don't think they realised as early as March just how the timing of the arriving flights affected whether luggage was in the container or not, or how the recovery position confirmed this.

Even assuming they had the details of the incoming flights pretty quickly (which I imagine they did), they had 17 interline passengers. They knew about the three cases that didn't go on the flight quite quickly too. I think it may have taken longer to establish for sure that a fair number of the passengers didn't check in any luggage. But even supposing they did know about that, there were still 11 potential interline suitcases.

Here's an updated version of the interline passenger table, in strict order of actual arrival according to the statement Buncrana identified.

Passenger | Flight | From | Landed | No of items
Nicola Hall|SA234|Johannesburg |06.46|1*
Bernt Carlsson|BA391|Brussels|11.06|1
Charles McKee|CY504|Larnaca|14.34|2
Matthew Gannon|CY504|Larnaca|14.34|1
Ronald LaRiviere|CY504|Larnaca|14.34|0
James Fuller|LH1628|Hannover|14.51|0
Louis Marengo|LH1628|Hannover|14.51|0
Gregory Kosmowski |BD777|Birmingham|15.07|0
Robert Fortune|BD108|Amsterdam|15.18|0
Elia Stratis|BD108|Amsterdam|15.18|0
Michael Bernstein|BA701|Vienna|15.35|2
Arnaud Rubin|BA395|Brussels|16.15|1
Joseph Curry|BA603|Pisa|16.21|2
Peter Peirce|BA603|Pisa|16.21|3*
James Stow|BA729|Geneva|16.34|0
Daniel O'Connor|CY1354 |Larnaca|16.43|1*
Richard Cawley|BA941|Dusseldorf|16.57|0

*three cases which didn't travel on PA103

Down as far as Bernstein is what was actually in the container. (They knew Nicola's case wasn't in it though.) Look at Rubin, though. His flight arrived too late for his case to go in the container, but that wouldn't have been immediately obvious. It was only gradually, as they figured there were five items loose-loaded at the last minute, and then of course that Rubin's suitcase had no explosives contamination and was found on the ground in the place where items from the rear of the plane ended up that Rubin's suitcase was classed with the too-late group.

It's possible nobody thought it through in as much detail as that while they were still doing the luggage reconciliation, but actually it would have been quite reasonable for Orr to have believed in the "seven cases" thing at that stage, based on the reconstructions. Henderson's report showing there were only six legitimate items probably wasn't compiled until a fair bit later. (This probably explains Mowat's "six or seven" comment, because Henderson had produced his report by then. Once again, one simply marvels that Mowat didn't get it.)

That still doesn't excuse the ignoring of the "mysterious appearance" and "brown Samsonite" parts by Orr in March though.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

How many explosion damaged suitcases were found? If the bomb suitcase was on the second row, you have to find fragments of at least two secondary suitcases (one below and one on top of the primary suitcase). I believe they only found one: the blue american tourister.

I just noticed that I seem to have been at slight cross-purposes with you on this point.

There were 26 explosion-damaged suitcases listed. however only two of these were absolutely pulverised. These are the only two we have photos of, see earlier in the thread. It was specifically noted in court that no other suitcase was recovered in that condition. The other 24 suffered less severe damage (though it appears that Bernt Carlsson's case, immediately behind the bomb bag, was also badly damaged and as a result proved difficult to identify. His sister and girl-friend appear not to have identified it, partly because he had a large collection of suitcases at home which confused them, but it was eventually identified by someone who had met with him on his Brussels visit).

The bomb could have been in either of the two pulverised suitcases on the basis if the degree of damage. One of these was a brown Samsonite mainly containing menswear, while the other was a navy blue canvas American Tourister belonging to Patricia Coyle who had interlined into Frankfurt from Vienna. However there was a serious investigation into the two students who had come from Vienna (Patricia and her friend Karen Noonan), and it was concluded they hadn't been given any nasty little "presents". Also, it seems forensics favoured the brown case as the bomb bag.

Looking at the arrangement of the luggage in the corner where the explosion occurred, it's incontrovertible that the bag in question had to be one of the two bottom cases in the front left-hand stack, or a holdall in the overhang immediately to the left of these. Subsequent investigation ruled out that last possibility, leaving the two flat suitcases in the frame.

The idea was advanced that the suitcase on the bottom layer wouldn't have been pushed into the overhang section, and the explosion was slightly into the overhang. However, the way they stacked the suitcases meant that the second case was no more likely to have been protruding into the overhang than the bottom one - they dressed the stacks to the right.

The illustration below shows that it was quite possible for a suitcase on the bottom layer to be originally loaded partly into the overhang. That picture is just a container loaded randomly as an example for a BBC documentary, and look how it came out!

I think it's less likely that the hardshell Samsonite would have been loaded like that. However it has been pointed out that the shiny, rigid, slightly convex case would have been very prone to slide up into that position when the aircraft banked. And it was a turbulent night that December.

So really, either the bottom one or the one above it, despite all the effort expended by the investigation to kid themselves (and us) that the bottom case wasn't in the frame.

We know what these cases were. The bottom one was Bedford's brown Samsonite, and the one on top of it was a case from Frankfurt.

We have two shattered cases, one brown Samsonite, and one case from Frankfurt. We know that forensics prefers the brown Samsonite as the bomb bag, and that a bomb in the upper of the two cases would be expected also to have pulverised the case on the third layer.

The Crown effort to "get out of that" at Camp Zeist has all the hallmarks of a "Hail Mary pass", and it was only successful because of what looks very much like judicial bias.

Rolfe.

 

[LittleSwan]

Thank you Rolfe.

There is an interesting part about Lockerbie in Alexander Beveridge, Forensic Investigation of Explosions, 2nd ed. Evidence of Explosive Damage to Materials and Structures, section 8.9.4. Pam Am Flight PA103..... page 343-347. It's about a polymeric material found in one of the pits (craters) in the so called extrusion that connects the floor panel with the sloped overhang:

" The solvent washings of the dark polymeric material recovered from one of the pits was analyzed using a combination of FTIR and XRD, which identified the black deposit as graphite bound by a resin coplymer, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS).... The material could have been derived from the suitcase or container in which the explosive divice was concealed"

Does anyone know if Samsonite 4000's are made of ABS?

 

[Rolfe]

That's beyond me, really. However, if it was found in the overhang section, it doesn't really show whether the primary suitcase was on the floor or not.

What would be interesting to know would be whether anything was found on the actual floor section, or indeed whether there was anything that wasn't Patricia's suitcase adherent to any of the other side fragments of the brown suitcase (as opposed to evidence that Patricia's suitcase had been flat against PI/911).

Rolfe.

 

[Ambrosia]

" The solvent washings of the dark polymeric material recovered from one of the pits was analyzed using a combination of FTIR and XRD, which identified the black deposit as graphite bound by a resin coplymer, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS).... The material could have been derived from the suitcase or container in which the explosive divice was concealed"

Does anyone know if Samsonite 4000's are made of ABS?

Hi LittleSwan, welcome to the JREF forums.

I don't know about suitcases, but mass produced electrical goods are very commonly made with black ABS plastic, I'd guess that it was from the toshiba radio the explosive was in.

 

[CTB]

Thank you Rolfe.

There is an interesting part about Lockerbie in Alexander Beveridge, Forensic Investigation of Explosions, 2nd ed. Evidence of Explosive Damage to Materials and Structures, section 8.9.4. Pam Am Flight PA103..... page 343-347. It's about a polymeric material found in one of the pits (craters) in the so called extrusion that connects the floor panel with the sloped overhang:

" The solvent washings of the dark polymeric material recovered from one of the pits was analyzed using a combination of FTIR and XRD, which identified the black deposit as graphite bound by a resin coplymer, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS).... The material could have been derived from the suitcase or container in which the explosive divice was concealed"

Does anyone know if Samsonite 4000's are made of ABS?

Hi LittleSwan,

welcome to the forum. You seem to have brought in some science to the ponderings! I'm very pleased about this, but I am certainly no scientist. I am, in my head at least, quite good at getting my noodle to twist around concepts here n there.

I haven't read Alexander Beveridge's Lockerbie investigation, but I am wondering what is meant by ' or container in which the explosive device was concealed' ie is he referring to the Toshiba radio or the luggage container AVE4041 ?

I haven't the faintest idea what a Samsonite 4000 is made of. Nor Toshiba radios, etc. I'm just intrigued to know that it's possible to still tell these things ( or at least the building blocks of them ) apart even after the catastrophe of panam103.



ETA: Thanks, Ambrosia!

 

[CTB]

Fatal Accident Inquiry Evidence- Day 17 - Siddhu and other Heathrow loaders/drivers


The day 17 transcript ( link above! ) is seriously interesting, isn't it? It gives a really good idea of how the baggage handling team at Heathrow handled the tight turn-around ie late arriving flight from Frankfurt, PA103 on it's way on time.

Some terminology is explained. I'd assumed 'rocket' referred to some kind of conveyer belt, but it was nice to see it all explained, especially which person was where and what they were doing.

One thing I hadn't realised was that AVE 4041 was originally penciled in on the 'cool plan' - ( original loading instruction ) for position 13R, which would have put it beside the cargo door. The worker in charge of the loading explains that the 'cool plan' is not set in stone and that it's part of his duties to load the 747 as best as the circumstances at the time allow.
I'd always just assumed that some containers would go down the left and some down the right, and there's me with all my tessellating truck-loading experience ( scenery and boxes, many many boxes, for touring theatre, if you're asking )

Sure, the terrorist isn't going to know in advance which tin is getting which label and which position said tin is going, but it's another notch to the "Deliberately Placed, Not Randomly Thrown, Into Tin" scenario. I'm sure others have mentioned the absolute 'luck' of that bomb being just exactly where it needed to be. What I mean is, that as long as the suitcase is in the right place in the tin, then it doesn't really matter which tin.

One other thing I picked up was a little momentary mis-understanding between the questioner and Siddhu ( perhaps from accents, or just folks not speaking very loudly )

Talking about the two cases lying on their sides Siddhu tells of them being wide and heavy-looking. "White or light?" say the Inquiry clearly not having heard properly. "Nope, both cases were definitely dark coloured" confirms Mr Siddhu .

( The previous paragraph involves a massive amount of paraphrasing. Small apologies for being a bit vague, but it's from source material and everybody should read it for themselves. In these ' post- Leveson ' days I'm ever less keen on best buddies relationships between police and media, even if the relatioships are 'historic' )


Anyhoo, I'd thoroughly recommend Fatal Accident Inquiry Evidence- Day 17 - Siddhu and other Heathrow loaders/drivers to anyone interested in the Heathrow baggage operation that day.

 

[Rolfe]

You're right, it didn't matter which container it was, or where the container was placed, so long as it was in the right corner of the container. Left hand side near the bottom would do it, every time.

Sidhu only has one "d", by the way.

The weird part about his FAI evidence is that most of it is new, apart from the "no I didn't move that luggage" part. His original police statements went into very little detail about any of that. There's more detail about earlier in the afternoon when he was working in the baggage build-up shed loading containers from the check-in desks. The police seem to have been utterly incurious about any of the detail on the tarmac. Of course the police who interviewed him were Met officers who didn't have access to the details of the case and weren't involved in analysing the data. They may not even have known where the explosion was. They would only press points Lockerbie asked them to press and it doesn't look as if Lockerbie asked them to press very much.

Same with Kamboj and Parmar, who were apparently right there when the mystery case appeared in the container. Nobody asked them anything about that half-hour. Nobody even asked Bedford which case it was he was describing as the brown Samsonite. It beggars belief.

If I could get day 16, which I think must contain Kamboj and Parmar as well as Bedford, is anyone interested? It's possible some smart cookie asked them the stuff the cops ought to have asked them but didn't.

Rolfe.

 

[LittleSwan]

Hi LittleSwan,

welcome to the forum. You seem to have brought in some science to the ponderings! I'm very pleased about this, but I am certainly no scientist. I am, in my head at least, quite good at getting my noodle to twist around concepts here n there.

ETA: Thanks, Ambrosia!

Well... I'm a scientist and I know a little bit of explosions.

A remarkable feature of the damage to AVE4041 is the fragmentation of the extrusion between the floor panel and the sloped overhang. You won't get fragmentation of this relatively strong part if the centre of the explosion (450gr Semtex) is app. 10 inch above it. Believe it or not, the so called "Claiden spot" is way to high.

 

[Rolfe]

For real?

My working assumption was that Claiden was an honest investigator. I'm prepared to swallow the possibility of Feraday and/or Hayes being involved in something a bit shady towards the end of 1989, but this is a different kettle of fish. This is an AAIB investigator. How is it possible that he could either be so mistaken (if it's as clear cut as you suggest), or deliberately mislead the inquiry at such an early stage?

ETA: What's your take on the horizontal position? Do you think it was actually in the overhang, as Claiden suggests, or could it have been a couple of inched into the main body of the container? For what it's worth, I always thought the position of the explosion was pretty much where the German sketch dated 7th January 1989 put it.

What do you reckon? Ruled out by the Mach Stem calculations if you do them right? Has anyone done them right?

Rolfe.

 

[pete2]

In the early days of the investigation (correct me if I'm wrong) the working assumption seems to have been that the Neuss PFLP-GC cell had something to do with the bombing, and that the bomb had travelled via Frankfurt. If you're trying to model the explosion, and if you know that there was an 'innocent' case on the bottom of AVE4041 which had not been moved, then you might be inclined to disregard any calculation which placed the explosion slap-bang inside this case, and maybe adjust parameters until you got a more 'sensible' result. Not falsification so much as self-censorship, the a priori ruling out of any results which contradicted known 'facts.'

 

[CTB]

If I could get day 16, which I think must contain Kamboj and Parmar as well as Bedford, is anyone interested? It's possible some smart cookie asked them the stuff the cops ought to have asked them but didn't.

Rolfe.

Yes, please. If it's get-able I'll have some. Thank-you.

 

[Rolfe]

In the early days of the investigation (correct me if I'm wrong) the working assumption seems to have been that the Neuss PFLP-GC cell had something to do with the bombing, and that the bomb had travelled via Frankfurt. If you're trying to model the explosion, and if you know that there was an 'innocent' case on the bottom of AVE4041 which had not been moved, then you might be inclined to disregard any calculation which placed the explosion slap-bang inside this case, and maybe adjust parameters until you got a more 'sensible' result. Not falsification so much as self-censorship, the a priori ruling out of any results which contradicted known 'facts.'

But that is absolutely not how it should be happening. The people who know about which suitcases from which source went where are the police. The job of the AAIB is to model the explosion, full stop. Not to go to the police and say, where do you want it to be? And not to listen to the police if they try to pressurise them.

The thought is that in the early stages the cops thought all the luggage in the container was from the feeder flight. And that fitted perfectly with the conclusion everyone (except Ronald Reagan, apparently) leaped to that this was the work of the Neuss PFLP-GC. Then they discovered from Bedford about the few Heathrow interline cases. So they assumed the bottom case must be innocent.

But it was only an assumption, and there's no obvious reason the Neuss gang couldn't have got their bomb to Heathrow overland/sea. Why so adamant against the lower suitcase?

Orr presented a report to the Lockerbie conference in March 1989 saying that "on the balance of probabilities" the bomb came from Frankfurt. His reasoning was that nearly all the recovered blast-damaged luggage at that point was of Frankfurt origin. Presumably he was trying to say, as was proposed at the FAI, that the bomb suitcase was in an enclave of luggage from the feeder flight.

But that is faulty reasoning. The bomb suitcase had to be either the Bedford case or the one above it. If it had been the Bedford case, that actually explains a relative dearth of Heathrow luggage involved in the explosion.

Latterly, it was all about the forensics showing the bomb wasn't on the bottom layer. That was the sole reason for excluding that suitcase. I know this case is riddled with circular reasoning, but that's ridiculous.

That suitcase was sitting there festooned in fairy-lights holding up a flashing neon sign reading "bomb here!" How incompetent is it possible to get?

CTB, I'll see what I can do. Any other requests for particular pieces of evidence?

Rolfe.

 

[LittleSwan]

CTB, I'll see what I can do. Any other requests for particular pieces of evidence?

Rolfe.

Oh.... Yes,

The joint report of Hayes and Feraday

The Indian Head Tests report with the pictures showing a fragmentated extrusion in test no. 5.

Pictures of explosion damaged suitcases

The report from James Wyatt who said he did 20 tests