Talk:The How, Why and Who of Pan Am Flight 103

Where was the Pan Am bomb ingested?

The Official Narrative says the bomb was introduced as unaccompanied baggage at Malta's Luqa airport, went by flight KM 180 to Frankfurt and put on feeder flight Pan Am 103A to Heathrow, where it was transferred to Pan Am Flight 103. The beauty of this narrative is that the aircraft "Clipper Maid of the Seas" automatically becomes the bomber's target, and scrutiny of Pan Am 103's passenger list for targets is unimportant.

Contrary to the Official Narrative, most informed opinion now believes the bomb was ingested at Heathrow. Yesterday, the Sunday Express reported Morag Kerr (whose book "Adequately Explained by Stupidity: Lockerbie, Luggage & Lies" was published on 21 December 2013) as saying:

"I am placing a magnifying glass on the luggage transfer, which is the key point as it determines where the luggage started its journey and whether Megrahi was guilty."

"When the evidence is put together, and these additional bits are added, it proves conclusively that the bomb was planted at Heathrow," she said.

As I see it, the problem (from the authorities' viewpoint) with "The London Origin Theory" is that it raises the obvious question: if it wasn't the aircraft, was one or more passengers on the flight the bomber's target? I welcome this development since it reinforces my view that the target was Bernt Carlsson, which "Rolfe" was blogging about here in February 2010.

What do others think?--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 16:53, 14 October 2013 (IST)

I have a general preference for theories in which multiple parties gain clearly in the short term from their malfeasance -- so a general suspicion of the "nothing to see here, all random chance" establishment disclaimers -- so I see the logic of the London theory. However I'm not well read up on Lockerbie enough claim an informed opinion. Robin (talk) 02:33, 24 October 2013 (IST)

A question posed to me once went something like this: if the purposes of the perpetrators required the bomb being placed aboard at Heathrow (eg a particular passenger targeted rather simply ANY US flight), then why risk a clumsy break-in? State/SIS sponsored contractors are capable of more subtle methods. In the nature of Deep Events, coincidence can be ruled out a priori, so what was the forced door and broken padlock all about? For sure it must have been done by the perps - either to gain entry or a false trail. I don't know enough of the gory details to reach a firm judgement on the matter. Of one thing I AM certain however, either way, it is further evidence in favour of Megrahi's innocence --Peter P (talk) 09:09, 24 October 2013 (IST)

I favour the "false trail" to explain "the forced door and broken padlock", as outlined in January 2010 to Adam Larson (aka "Caustic Logic") on The Lockerbie Divide website:

Dear Adam,

In my letter to The Guardian of 7 December 1989 headed "Finger of suspicion", I referred to an article of 9 November 1989 by David Pallister, who must be one of the first journalists to have postulated the "London Origin Theory".

It seems obvious to me that an IED with a barometric trigger - such as Marwan Khreesat's device - must have been ingested at Heathrow, otherwise it would have detonated 35 minutes after take-off from Luqa or from Frankfurt.

The apartheid regime, having been subcontracted by the CIA the task of sabotaging an American aircraft, then selected the flight - Pan Am 103; the date - 21 December 1988; and the target - UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson.

Which I like to call the "South Africa Luggage Swap Theory", that I believe was master-minded by SA 'superspy' Craig Williamson.

Would you, Caustic Logic, care to test-drive it?

PS. I reckon South Africa's Civil Cooperation Bureau cut the padlock at Heathrow's security gate on 20/21 December 1988, to make it look like a break-in rather than the inside job that it actually was.

Regards,

Patrick H.

The Case of the Disappearing Diamonds?

This is in the 'See Also' section, but I'd like to axe that section for clarity. Could we instead make the relevance clear by working it into the text? Robin (talk) 06:14, 14 October 2013 (IST)

'See also' axed and this text introduced: "Bengtsson reported that the diamond mining giant De Beers had been heavily criticised by Bernt Carlsson in a 1987 TV documentary 'The Case of the Disappearing Diamonds', and were threatened with prosecution by the UN for over-exploitation of Namibia's diamonds. Bengtsson alleged that Commissioner Carlsson's arm had been twisted by De Beers into making a stopover in London for a secret meeting and into joining the doomed flight, rather than taking as he had intended a Sabena flight direct from Brussels to New York:"--Patrick Haseldine (talk) 15:44, 14 October 2013 (IST)

Page Title/Content

Is this title a quotation? While it has an interesting set of details, they're not organised as "how", "why" or "who" - so the title doesn't match well. Unless we change the title, I suggest a reorganisation along these lines. Is this page going to be a summary of information elsewhere on this wiki? I await with interest, as I would like to see more syntheses of the material that is already here.

Robin (talk) 10:42, 3 July 2013 (IST)

I'm building the article with original material outlining "how", "why" and "who", but with reference to detailed information in other Wikispooks articles. The process might take a day or two. Patrick Haseldine (talk) 11:57, 3 July 2013 (IST)

Now completed: it took a few days longer than anticipated. Patrick Haseldine (talk) 14:22, 6 July 2013 (IST)

Comments please

1. What is "Maid of the Seas" and why is it linked to an article that doesn't mention it? Robin (talk) 08:27, 7 July 2013 (IST)
   • A. "Clipper Maid of the Seas" was the name of the Pan American World Airways Boeing 747-121 aircraft (N739PA) that was sabotaged over Lockerbie, Scotland on Wednesday 21 December 1988. "Clipper Maid of the Seas" is now mentioned in the first line of the Lockerbie Bombing article. Patrick Haseldine (talk) 12:22, 7 July 2013 (IST)
2. The Lockerbie articles seem to me a bit sprawling. Some tightly written summaries might help newcomers to this topic. I just linked it in from the WP+ page. Maybe we should arrange for this page to have more visibility somehow? Robin (talk) 20:03, 25 September 2013 (IST)

Ideal Synthesis Page

As suggested by the icon, the ideal synthesis page shows how different topics fit together. So as well as a small number of key facts, it will have a bunch of Full Article: ... sections so that readers can see the information in more detail elsewhere. Often this will not be possible (because we don't have a single compelling narrative that ties in all the key information -- or because multiple competing narratives do so); in case of ambiguity, I think it would be good to be completely up front about this with a kind of "switch" (=programming metaphor) structure: e.g.

1. Competing bomb origin theories
   1. South African Luggage Swap Theory
   2. Frankfurt Bomb Theory...

By making it clear that certain ideas are incompatible, I think that this would help readers focus on what do they believe. It could also provide us with a set of page titles to use to structure the information (and note that this could fit with SMW, if we define predicates "implies", "precludes" and "supports" then we could use such page titles as URIs to interrelate theories). Of course, we'll never reach a prefect page, but this is my vision of the direction I'd like to head in... Robin (talk) 02:11, 25 October 2013 (IST)