- Title: UK: Lockerbie remembers - 20 years on
- Date: 17th December 2008
- Summary: CAMP ZEIST, THE NETHERLANDS (JANUARY 22, 2002) (REUTERS) SECURITY GATE AT ENTRANCE TO CAMP ZEIST BEING OPENED, SIGN READING "SCOTTISH COURT IN THE NETHERLANDS"
- Embargoed: 1st January 2009 12:00
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- Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
- Reuters ID: LVAIR1RMGJ79UH2IDJ5UNNQTJN9
- Story Text: The Scottish town of Lockerbie prepares for the 20th anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 when 270 people died.
Twenty years ago next Sunday (December 21) a small Scottish town became the focus of world attention when a jumbo jet exploded 31,000 feet above, sending the plane and its 259 passengers and crew plummeting to earth.
The wings and part of the fuselage of Pan Am Flight 103 crashed into a quiet street in Lockerbie, obliterating several houses and killing eleven residents, including an entire family of four.
The cockpit of the Boeing 747 sat on its side on a nearby hill.
The bodies of victims and their belongings were scattered over several miles.
Some landed with a thud in people's gardens, or crashed onto roofs.
Others, including those who died on the ground, were never recovered, incinerated in the furnace-like heat.
Christmas for many in the town was cancelled.
Inspector George Stobbs had just finished his dinner after working a dayshift in Lockerbie when television news reported a plane had crashed into the town.
At first he thought it was military jets, which frequently carried out low-level flying operations in the area.
But when he arrived on the scene he quickly realised the enormity of the situation.
The town's Sherwood Crescent took the full force of the impact of wreckage from Flight 103. Houses disappeared into a huge crater 70 metres wide and ten metres deep.
Whole streets were ablaze. Yet the rest of the town was plunged into darkness as the electricity was cut. There was no water to put out the flames, as a mains water pipe had been fractured outside Lockerbie by more debris from the plane.
Stobbs, now retired, speaks of wading through the rubble, roof tiles, blown out hedges and "probably bodies" as he surveyed the devastation. He saw wrought-iron gates melting in front of his eyes.
It was not possible to train for an event like Lockerbie, he said.
No-one could have imagined there would be no water to fight the fires or that victims would be scattered over such a wide area. One body was recovered five miles away.
Today, Lockerbie is preparing for the 20th anniversary of the disaster that effectively put the town on the world map.
There will be a number of commemoration services, as local residents and relatives and friends pay their respects.
In a wooded area on the outskirts of the town a huge granite memorial stone sits in Dryfesdale cemetery, listing all those who died, from 21 different countries. A Garden of Remembrance allows visitors the chance for quiet contemplation.
Glasgow journalist Lorraine Davidson was one of the first from outside Lockerbie to arrive on the scene.
She remembers the horror on the faces of rescuers, who'd searched the nearby hills for bodies... and found them.
"The smell of burning aviation fuel told you this was not the set of a horror movie, but was absolutely real," she said.
If the bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 had exploded a few minutes earlier, or later, Lockerbie would still be a small Scottish market town of a few thousand population, largely unknown to most Scots, never mind the rest of the world.
But it didn't. And in Sherwood Crescent, eleven residents disappeared off the face of the earth in a split second, their homes reduced to nothing in a huge hole in the ground.
The crater was filled in within a year of the tragedy. In its place another garden where victims can be remembered.
Local resident Maxwell Kerr, a member of Lockerbie Community Council, says Lockerbie has moved on from the disaster, but will never forget those who died.
At Dryfesdale Lodge Visitor Centre, former councillor Marjorie McQueen, agrees.
Friendships have been formed between locals and relatives of victims - the vast majority of whom were from the United States. There are also exchange trips between Lockerbie Academy and Syracuse University in New York state.
Thirty-five students from Syracuse, on their way home for Christmas, died on Flight 103.
McQueen says the tragedy drew the town closer together and gave it an identity to be proud of - "It's strengthened the community."
For one man, whose daughter Flora was on the ill-fated flight, life would never be the same again.
Dr Jim Swire has campaigned tirelessly for justice. He says it's been his way of coping with what happened.
In the aftermath of the bombing, the finger of blame pointed towards Libya, whose leader Muammar Gaddafi eventually handed over two men for trial.
Businessman Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, accused of being an officer in Gaddafi's secret service, was convicted in 1999 at a special Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. His co-accused was acquitted.
Fifty-six-year-old al-Megrahi, who was jailed for life, has always maintained his innocence. He's now reported to be dying of cancer and may have only months to live.
Judges rejected an appeal against conviction in 2002. Another appeal is pending.
The Scottish criminal cases review commission has identified six grounds where it believes there may have been a miscarriage of justice.
Dr Jim Swire is certain the wrong man is in prison and that al-Megrahi should be freed.
He said he wasn't prepared to see the memory of his daughter associated with "a deliberately false criminal charge, criminal verdict and criminal punishment for a man I now believe had nothing to do with it."
In Lockerbie, twenty years after Britain's worst peace time atrocity, the Christmas lights are on; the stained glass window in the town hall, showing the flags of all those countries affected by the tragedy, an ever present reminder of the night Pan Am Flight 103 came down, and 270 people died. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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