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Revision as of 03:00, 11 November 2004

For Googlebot: Lockerbie disaster, Lockerbie air disaster

In Britain this is usually referred to as the 'Lockerbie disaster'. I was tempted to move this page to that but, i'm wondering if it is usually referred to as 'Pan Am 103' in the US?

Lockerbie at the moment redirects to this page, which means the reference to Lockerbie found on this page refers to itself. I plan to make the page listed as Lockerbie have some brief information about the town and refer to the disaster. Is this acceptable to US readers? Mintguy 17:10 Sep 5, 2002 (PDT)

The little TV news reporter in my head is saying "Pan Am flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988". Certainly the particular phrase "Lockerbie disaster" is unfamiliar. --Brion 16:21 Sep 10, 2002 (UTC)

I've always known it as "Pan Am 103" too. A redirect from from Lockerbie disaster would be appropriate. --Stephen Gilbert 00:42 Sep 11, 2002 (UTC)

It's usually "Lockerbie bombing" rather than "Lockerbie disaster". (The linked Google searches confirm this.) --Zundark 09:45 Dec 21, 2002 (UTC)

I'm suprised by this. Putting site:uk into the search reduces the differential, but it still puts Lockerbie bombing ahead. Mintguy

It's called The Lockerbie disaster by the Edinburgh Law Review. Mintguy

There was no bombing in Lockerbie and the largest disaster occurred on the plane itself, not the ground. The bomb was on the plane and my American ears have never heard the event called the Lockerbie disaster or bombing. Lockerbie was where (most of) the plane happened to crash. It was just an extra bonus for the terrorists that it crashed into a populated area. --mav

Mav that's actually quite offensive! 11 Lockerbie residents died! Mintguy

The whole event was quite offensive. BTW 259 people died that were on the plane. --mav

I'm well aware of that. I was referrng to your comment before you cleaned it up with an edit. I'm glad you did that. Mintguy

could we somehow rewrite the opening to mention the alternative name, Lockerbie disaster please. It really is known as "lockerbie" in the UK, mav -- Tarquin 13:01, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Just to confuse matters, the memorials in Lockerbie (of which there are at least 3) call it the Lockerbie Air Disaster 2 in the cemetary , and large stone in Sherwood Crescent where many of the local victims lived (I can't find a decent picture of this, but I've seen it on TV). Plus what appears to be a bench with the words "Lockerbie Air Crash Disaster" from a BBC report Mintguy 14:33, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I never doubted what this event is called in the UK. And you could have edited this article mentioning the alternate name in fewer words that it took for you to complain. This is a wiki if you recall. ;-) Alas, I did the work for you. --mav

I have never, ever heard the phrase "Pan Am flight 103" in Australia. I'm very surprised that this is at such an uninformative and obscure title. Tannin

So you are not familiar with the downing of that fight then? In the US it is known as "Pam Am flight 103" and that is where the article was originally. Thus in order to respect our American/British usage rule, the article stays where it is. --mav 23:02, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Of course I'm familiar with the Lockerbie disaster. You'd have to live in an iron lung not to have heard of it. The B/A usage rule is a good one, but I wonder if it's appropriate here - the event did taker place in the UK, after all. But in the interests of peace and quiet, and in the knowledge that there will never be an answer to this one to satisfy speakers of English and American languages, I guess we are stuck with it, unfortunately. Tannin

the reason I didn't make the edit mav is that I could see how to put it in where it now is, but I was *convinced* there was a way to recast the first paragraph to give both names in the opening sentence. I just couldn't see it though. :( -- Tarquin 23:13, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

As the relative of two of the ground victims, I didn't even know the flight number until I was poking around here - every calls it Lockerbie in the UK and Ireland. Although I see this debate did end ages ago... Kiand 18:50, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Page moved back. All our air disaster entries in Misplaced Pages that I know of are named after the flight name. There is no need to add "disaster" to that unless we want to disambiguate a full article about the flight from an article about the disaster. I don't foresee us ever having a full article on the flight, so there is no need to have the longer name. Keep it simple. --mav 21:36, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Why I am again amending the article

User:SlimVirgin continues to remove any reference to the bomb causing catastrophic structural failure to Pan Am Flight 103, saying investigators called (it) a "catastrophic systems failure". I'm not sure which particular investigators he means, but whatever, the logical sequence has to be catastrophic structural failure and any consequent/coincident developments. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch produced Aircraft Accident Report No 2/90 (EW/C1094), the report on the accident to Boeing 747-121, N739PA at Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, Scotland on 21 December 1988. You can read the report here.

Nowhere does the report mention "catastrophic systems failure" or even "systems failure". But is does state the following:

• "The combined effect of the direct and indirect explosive forces was to destroy the structural integrity of the forward fuselage".

• "The problem of reducing the vulnerability of commercial aircraft to explosive damage ............. those damage mechanisms which appear to have contributed to the catastrophic structural failure of Flight PA103 are identified"

• "The indirect explosive effects produced significant structural damage in areas remote from the site of the explosion".

• ".....it is therefore essential that means are sought to reduce the vulnerability of commercial aircraft structures to explosive damage"

• "There were no indications that the crew had attempted to react to rapid decompression or loss of control or that any emergency preparations had been actioned prior to the catastrophic disintegration."

I say again, nowhere does the report mention "catastrophic systems failure" or even "systems failure"

Therefore, I am again amending the article to include the fact that the bomb caused a catastrophic structural failure That's why it fell out of the sky and everyone died, including the pilots. If all the systems in the world had been available and had not failed, everyone on board would still be dead because their aircraft had totally disintegrated. But of course they did fail, as a result of the aircraft suffering catastrophic structural failure. Subsequent gyrations and odd behaviour of bits of the aircraft are exactly that, subsequent to the disintegration. They have absolutely nothing to do with the loss of control.Moriori 09:18, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Moriori, I believe you are wrong about this. If you read the air accident report, you will see that the explosion put pressure on the control cables. It was the movement of control cables that caused the aircraft to start lurching around, and it was THIS that caused the process that began the aircraft's disintegration.

My version explains why and how the disintegration occurred. Yours does not. You say simply that there was an explosion and the plane disintegrated. You don't explain why it disintegrated. It was a very, very small improvised explosive device. Had it been placed anywhere else on the plane, it would not have caused the destruction of the plane.

I feel you should not keep editing this section because your version has less explanatory power than mine. Also bear in mind that there were a large number of technical reports completed on PA 103, not just the air accident report, and they are not all online. They DO mention catastrophic systems failure, and this is how Pan Am and the pilots described the sequence of events.

If you have specialist knowledge about this disaster and how it unfolded, I will not re-edit the piece, but then please explain the process by which such a small bomb could destroy a Boeing 747. But if you do not have specialist knowledge of this, I feel you should leave the entry alone.

Slim

Slim, I can read. I HAVE read the Air Accidents Investigation Branch report which I quote above. I thought by now I wouldn’t need to repeat that the report DOES NOT mention "catastrophic systems failure" or even "systems failure". But it DOES mention "catastrophic structural failure of Flight PA103".

I must comment on your statement above, namely "You say simply that there was an explosion and the plane disintegrated. You don't explain why it disintegrated. It was a very, very small improvised explosive device. Had it been placed anywhere else on the plane, it would not have caused the destruction of the plane". I thought I had made it pretty clear why the plane disintegrated. A bomb caused catastrophic structural failure and disintegration. Your claim that being a very small bomb it would not have destroyed the plane if placed elsewhere on the plane is refuted by the accident report which says "indirect explosive effects produced significant structural damage in areas remote from the site of the explosion".

Can I also point out something else you say above -- the explosion put pressure on the control cables. It was the movement of control cables that caused the aircraft to start lurching around, and it was THIS that caused the process that began the aircraft's disintegration. Slim, the THIS you mention shows that the control system was still working as the plane was breaking up. The investigation report goes even further, saying (the aircraft's subsequent manouevres were) probably as a result of inputs applied to the flying control cables by movement of structure. Quite so, the structure was disintegrating, and as the report says, between 2-3 secs of the bomb blast the nose had been torn off the fuselage.

OK, no-one would say there weren't various associated failures. But they resulted from a bomb compromising the structural integrity, not the other way round. No system can prevent the destruction of a structure already destructing. Anyway Slim, you obviously want the article to be accurate, as do I. I am not going to get in an edit war over it. Mentioning rapid consequential developments such as system breakdown in the article is fine by me, but it should be made clear they were consequent and not the cause. Moriori 02:21, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Moriori,

I have rewritten the systems failure section, using the phrase "catastrophic systems and structural failure" as a compromise. I have also expanded a little on the way the plane is believed to have disintegrated.

You say that the control cables moving the plane shows that the cables were working as the plane was breaking up. True. But it was a systems failure in the sense that the pilots had no control over the cables, and the automatic pilot had no control over them. This is what is meant by a systems failure. All the back-up safety features designed to prevent or correct violent movement failed, because the electronic cables were moved by the force of the blast and the warping of the section of the plane that contained the cables. There is a British investigators' video of the way the plane broke up. It shows the violent side-to-side movements, almost a twisting of the plane, that led to the cockpit breaking off. These violent movements were caused by the control cables being shaken by the blast, thereby causing the plane to twist to the left, then to the right, then to the left.

My point is that there were two separable causes of the disintegration: the movement of the flight control cables and the Mach stem shock waves. I hope my revision has made this clear without being long-winded.

Bear in mind that the British air accident investigators don't actually know how or why PA 103 broke up. Their Mach stem shock wave hypothesis is just that, and it is a controversial one. There were several official reports on the destruction of PA 103. The British air accident investigators' report is the only one that has been made public, to my knowledge, and so is the one most people refer to, but not all the specialists agrees with it. The disagreement over exactly how the plane fell apart is, in part, why so many other theories continue to do the rounds, including one theory that says there was no bomb on the aircraft at all, but only a systems and structural failure triggered by (as I recall) a door swinging open in flight. These alternative theories have been fought off by, among others, the aircraft manufacturer, for obvious reasons. I haven't gone into any of these theories because they are highly controversial and would make the article very long.

Slim

Slim, I am no longer interested in your theorising, I am interested only in facts. I have amended the article to REPRESENT THE FACTS. It REPORTS FACTS and references the official report which contains information gleaned from all known facts. You obviously believe you know better than the official report of the British air investigators, who you say don't actually know how or why PA 103 broke up.. There was an explosion, the explosion caused the aircraft to disintegrate as the official investigation clearly states, and even if EVERY system had still been intact the aircraft could not have survived the explosion. I have never ever been in a long revert war on wiki, but believe me I am determined to defend this article against your theorising. Moriori 09:52, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Dear Moriori,

When I joined Misplaced Pages, I understood their policy to be that all users should assume that other users are acting in good faith, and should be reasonable and polite. Editing disputes are supposed to take place in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Changes should not be made in an arbitrary manner.

You are not acting in good faith, and you are not assuming that I am either. You are making things up as you go along -- for example, that the people in the cockpit died as soon as the explosion occurred. There is no evidence to support this. Quite the opposite in fact: One flight attendant was found alive inside the cockpit.

no one was found aliveGeni 23:43, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You are wrong, Geni. A female flight attendant was found alive by a farmer's wife -- alive in the sense of appearing to breathe and have a heart beat. Her injuries were such that she could not have lived for long, and she stopped breathing after just a couple of minutes. Slim

Do you have a source?Geni 00:45, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I will find you a written reference and will post a link back here. As a matter of interest, what is the etiquette about replying to queries like this? Am I putting the answer in the right place? Sorry if this is a stupid question but I'm new to this. Also, is there a way to insert the time other than doing it manually? user:SlimVirgin

Normally an extra indentation is used to signify a reply. To get the date after you name you use ~~~~ ie use for tidemarks Geni 02:12, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Geni. You can find an online reference to the flight attendant who was found alive at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/victim.html#hit -- in the last paragraph in the Cause of Death section. This is a website that has a few errors in it, but I know the information about the flight attendant is true, although I don't think she lived as long as 10 minutes as the website says. There is also an article here http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/az6.html about the testimony at a public inquiry of the pathologist who supervised the PA 103 autopsies. The pathologist believes the pilot may have been alive and conscious on impact because of a thumb indentation that indicated he was hanging onto the yoke of the plane. This article also makes reference to the flight attendant. There are other indications that passengers may have been alive when they landed: for example, two friends were found holding hands and a woman was found holding her baby. Other passengers were found holding bibles and crucifixes. It's an issue that's not often discussed publicly out of respect for the families, but some of it came out during the public inquiry.

Further references to the surviving flight attendant can be found in "The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation" by Steven Emerson and Brian Duffy; "On the Trail of Terror: The Inside Story of the Lockerbie Investigation" by David Leppard; "Their Darkest Day: The Tragedy of Pan Am 103" by Matthew Cox and Tom Foster; and I believe it is also referenced in "Pan Am 103: the Bombing, the Betrayals, and a Bereaved Family's Search for Justice" by Daniel and Susan Cohen.

Thanks again for the information about how to write these replies.

Slim user:SlimVirgin

To Moriari, continued/ I am only interested in the facts and the facts are all that I have added. The issue between us is whether the stress should be on systems failure or structural failure. I therefore wrote up a compromise between us which expanded on both, and which laid equal stress on both, showing how the two issues are related and how the systems and the structural failure both contributed to the rapid break-up of the plane. The British investigators' report, which was intended for public consumption, does say that both issues (the control cables moving and the Mach stem shockwaves) contributed to the break-up. There are other more extensive reports, like Pan Am's, Boeing's, the FAA's. They all talk about systems failure and the movement of the control cables. The nose would not have started to pitch and yaw if the control cables hadn't moved it. The control cables would not have been able to move the nose if the automatic pilot had worked. It didn't, because the communications and nagivation center was badly damaged i.e. there was a systems failure. If the control cables hadn't moved the nose, the cockpit would not have snapped off the way it did. The reason there is only a split second of noise on the flight recorder/black box is not that there was nothing to record; rather, it didn't record because there was a systems failure. Similarly, if the pilots did attempt any evasive action, it was not recorded because there was a systems failure.

When I say that no one knows exactly why or how the plane disintegrated, I am not theorizing. If you talk to or read the work of any of the investigators, that is what they will tell you. Commonsense will tell you the same thing. All the investigators can do is make educated guesses because the break-up of a 747 in that way was unprecedented. In order to obtain any information about how it had happened, they had to blow up old 747s in controlled explosions to try to reproduce the devastation. The air accident report you have read is based on inferences from these experiments. It isn't an exact science but is the best anyone can come up with.

Slim

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