Lockerbie - Sky Atlantic

[witchycat2]

Is anyone watching this? Stars Colin Firth as Jim Swire.

The first episode was horrifying when they depicted the plane crashing down on Lockerbie. The bodies, the baby, the seats, the woman hanging in a tree... the little boy who went out for a bike ride and then returned to a crater where his house once was. His whole family gone.

I wasn't even born when it happened, but I've read quite a bit about the politics and events that have followed. This may be a controversial 'drama' but it does illustrate the real horrors of that night.

My late husband's friend was in a Mountain Rescue team. He and his dog searched for bodies. Horrific.

He actually refused to take his dog into the depths of the crater for fear of the damage that the fumes would do to the dog.

I still think Libya was involved as why would they pay out billions in compensation otherwise?

To get rid of sanctions and to start selling their oil again, something they have a lot of.

Yes sorry I don't know why I changed that. Didn't mean to be disrespectful.

Yes, that's what Jim Swire and those who believe Libya was not involved say. I still think the payout was too large for Libya to be completely innocent in this plot. Also wasn't Libya behind an almost identical attack on a plane that exploded over Niger not long after Lockerbie? However, the radio bombs found in Frankfurt a few months before are just too much of a coincidence for the Palestinian terror group not to also be involved.

It's something Putin did with the most recent plane they shot down - apologise but not admit guilt 🤨 sounds like what Gaddafi did with Lockerbie. But the evidence of Megrahi's involvement was very weak.

The most mysterious character in all this was the Swiss Mebo guy who supplied the timers. I don't understand what he was playing at in the documentary. From the documentary, the information that Libya was involved in Lockerbie first came from him when he delivered a letter to a US Embassy in Austria saying the US should look at Libya. Why did he do that when Libya was his biggest client?! He then said that his company made the timer only to then deny it again at the trial. He now says the little timer part was not made by Mebo and was planted. Very strange that he wrote that letter in the first place though. Also, he was "legitimately" (🧐) supplying bomb timers to the Libyan intelligence services. Surely that shouldn't be legal given their involvement in international terrorism?!

@XelaM

Do you mean this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTA_Flight_772

As a general point I can understand what has motivated Jim Swire over the years, however a book and Colin Firth starring in a TV version of the same shouldn’t mean we think the Swire’s version of the Pan Am bombing and who was to blame automatically has any more credibility or gravitas than many other theories that have done the rounds of the years.

Anything could have gone wrong with that plan. The bomb could have easily gone off anywhere. The timer worked for up to 45 minutes and the bomb exploded 38 minutes into the flight.

That and similar comment has been made a few times, I guess because a lot of people are thinking that the “timer” was simply something analogous to an alarm clock…

I’m not sure how much exact detail of the device ever made it into the public domain, I’ve not seen much, but posters maybe need to appreciate that with the appropriate skill set, knowledge and materials it’s possible for somebody with ill intent to produce a device that will activate, say 40 minutes into the third sector the device is going to be carried on…In that case delays on the first two sectors would be irrelevant…

I think, but don't shoot me if I'm wrong, it was the same or similar to the one used in the Brighton Bombing.

I can’t recall where I read it (may have been Jim Swite’s book?) but the USA made some payment(s) to Libya so it may have been a net zero outcome e for Libya financially.

Ignore!! The payments are to Jordan (£2bn per year) to support the protective custody of the bomb maker.

I personally feel that Megrahi is a scapegoat, and they've not released the real details f what happened, because they believed that nearly 300 innocent people dying in retaliation (for either the bombing of Libya, or in retaliation for the flight the UK shot down) then agreeing to draw a line under it was the price to pay to prevent a full-blown war.

@Twonewcats

…, or in retaliation for the flight the UK shot down)

Which flight are you referring to?

I think @Twonewcats means the Iranian passenger plane the US shot down (where 290 people including around 70 children died).

In the Sky documentary they show footage of how it was shot down. I was quite shocked at how callous the US soldiers were who shot down the plane and the comments they made. And they shot it down by mistake to protect their oil tankers 🙄 No different to Russia that has shot down passenger planes. Just criminal.

A lad I went to school with joined the army and was one of the soldiers sent to help clean up.

He later committed suicide. Not directly because of that but it definitely contributed.

@Twonewcats 100% agree.

I think @Twonewcats means the Iranian passenger plane the US shot down

Oh I’d guessed that was the case immediately I saw the comment.

Some of the senior crew of the USS Vincennes (so sailors, not soldiers) should have gone to prison for that, but nevertheless it’s maybe worth trying to get some of the basic and easily verifiable facts right.

Yes thats the one. "We" meaning the West.

My dsis had a young American colleague who decided last minute to return home for Christmas.
She was on that flight.
So sad.

www.jesip.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Lockerbie-Aircraft-Accident-Report.pdf

The age & ability of the aircraft to withstand an Explosion was mentioned in the AAIB's accident report, in the synopsis & recommendations.

The age & ability of the aircraft to withstand an Explosion was mentioned in the AAIB's accident report, in the synopsis & recommendations.

Yes it did.

It’s been a while since I’ve looked at the report but as I recall it (I’m on the move so this is from memory,) so I’ll have another look at the report later, they noted that the aircraft was maintained iaw with requirements/regs and to paraphrase was no better or worse at withstanding (or not) the explosion than other aircraft of that era…I didn’t think they singled out that specific airframe as being particularly vulnerable due age, which is what I thought you were claiming, if it wasn’t then my apologies.

….and yes, the report did come out with recommendations for future designs, both of aircraft and of things like cargo containers, ULDs etc, which is entirely what you’d expect from any such report.

Has any aircraft ever withstood a mid-air explosion? I didn't think it was possible

Yep, wiki has a whole page devoted to it.

[trigger warning for nervous flyers]

Just for background whether an aircraft will survive an explosion on board or not depends on a whole host of variables..the following list is not exclusive but includes size of bomb, it’s location and what surrounds it, differential pressure at the time of the explosion (roughly speaking how pressurized the aircraft is) and the aircraft’s airspeed.

All of those are much much more important than the age of the aircraft, and that’s why it’s pretty much impossible to compare two explosions and draw any conclusions about whether aircraft design A was better than B or a newer aircraft automatically has a better chance of surviving a blast than an older one.

FWIW in the context of the thread I flew the 747 (three different variants) for a big chunk of my career and it was always regarded as a very very tough aircraft, even the older airframes, even when knocking on in years…

The specific issue at Lockerbie was that the bomb was located somewhere where it could do significant damage to the hull, and the aircraft was up at cruising flight level (so reasonable differential pressure) and also traveling at high airspeed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_airliner_bombing_attacks

Instead they all got medals.

@AgnesX having attended a lecture where their role was explained I'm not surprised, every one of them should have had extensive counselling.

Have you tried Now TV? I watch all of my Sky content through that Streaming Channel and Lockerbie is on there at the moment.

I watched it, and appreciated it.

I too remember the night it happened as I was heavily pregnant and out with my sister for a pre Christmas meal that evening. It was on our return home that we watched the news of the crash. So terribly sad, devastating.

I don't think I maybe saw much of the trial at the time it was held but I have watched documentaries since, most likely the one from Sky TV as some footage from this drama was very familiar.

A PP said that many of them were still alive during the fall to earth and died on impact 😞

Yesterday I read a BBC article based on a journal article that suggested that two passengers even actually survived the impact (as they only had minor injuries - one had a broken leg and the other had a broken leg, ribs and a minor brain bleed) but died from exposure. It said that they would have likely survived had they received sooner medical attention. They didn't know how, but suggested that their fall was somehow slowed and impact cushioned.

I suppose a airline seat is perfectly designed to do just that