My Lockerbie experience.
My Lockerbie experience. This document was written in 2023.
I joined British Airways as a clerk in the Finance department in September 1972. It was back-office work where the only people to be seen were other staff members.
In early spring 1985, I decided that I had worked for British Airways for so long that I needed to work with some members of the public face to face. I joined a volunteer part of British Airways called EPIC. This is an acronym for the Emergency Procedures Information Centre and is part of their Disaster Management department. The centre was designed for any incident or accident to either a British Airways aircraft or to any third-party aircraft contracted into the system. Should there be an incident to either a British Airways aircraft or an aircraft belonging to a contracted carrier, a dedicated telephone number would be issued to the media (usually during news bulletins) so that families and friends of passengers thought to be on board the aircraft, could call the number to establish whether or not the person they were concerned about, was actually on board.
There was a two-week training course, followed by a further six weeks with just a half a day each week but there was a lot of information to take in. We were taught, amongst a host of other things, the best way to extract from callers, the information we required to be able to ascertain whether or not the caller was talking about a genuine passenger on board a flight. In the 1980s and prior it was not easy to establish who a passenger was, the computer booking system, which was used to issue tickets at that time, was only capable of holding the first nine characters of a surname. This meant that should an enquiry be made about a passenger whose surname was longer than nine characters, we had to do some detective work to establish the probability that this was the person being enquired about. There was no address information on the system. The best information we could get would be a travel agent address if indeed a travel agent was used. Investigations would have to be made through a travel agent to see if we could establish any passenger details they may have. Sometimes, if the ticket was bought with cash, there would be no record of the passenger or his address. Similarly, if the ticket was bought via a third party, there would be no contact details for the passenger.
What we needed was for people to ring in and, without them realising, tell us who the passengers were. Of course, they felt they were ringing in to find out information about their passenger, not supply us with the information. For various reasons, we needed to know the name of the passenger, their address, age/information date of birth, religion, next-of-kin, and any other relevant information including details of who would hold their medical records and dental records as those records may be the only certain means of identification. A specialist team of undertakers was employed in the event that identification was impossible by normal visual means or if it was felt a relative should not be subjected to certain sights.
In 1988 a friend of mine had met the girl of his dreams, and it was arranged for me to meet her as well. As it was coming up for Christmas, we decided that we would go to a Mexican restaurant in Virginia Water. I said that I would meet him there at a quarter to eight in the evening. I arrived early and sat in the car with the radio on. At seven thirty a news bulletin said that an aircraft had crashed in Scotland within the previous half an hour. It took me as long as one millionth of a second to realise that I had to go to EPIC, mobile phones were still many years off, but I had to go - regardless of not being able to tell my friend.
I drove to the Cargocentre and hurried to the Cargo Tunnel. This is a tunnel used to get traffic from the whole cargo village, under the south runway at Heathrow and into the central area. Anybody with an airside pass could wait at a certain point and any transport with a seat available could stop and offer you a lift, regardless of whether it was your company or another. I waited and picked up a lift almost straight away.
EPIC was in the basement of Queens Building (named because Queen Elizabeth II opened it) in the central area, so I headed there. I ran into the building flew down the stairs and passed through the security checks. Once inside EPIC I registered that I was available and was allocated a seat on a carousel. Information was scant regarding the incident but some details were available. The aircraft was a 747, named “Maid of the Seas”, operated by Pan American World Airways, under flight number PA103. The date was 21st of December 1988 and the crash site was Lockerbie.
There were two carousels each capable of accommodating eight people involved in telephone calls plus a supervisor. There were a further 12 support desks, a log-keeper, a communications officer, a member of staff trained in using the flight reservation system, a logistics officer, as well as ad hoc staff together with the Epic manager. Also present was a representative of Pan Am, two police officers from the Metropolitan Police and a representative from the American embassy, although the Ambassador himself attended for some of the time.
Every country in the world has its own method of informing the next of kin of fatalities, for example in the United Kingdom the people to inform of fatalities are the police, whereas in the United States - at that time - it fell upon the fire department. Because of the way next-of-kin are informed in the United Kingdom there needs to be a police presence so that they can pass information to the various forces within Great Britain. Also, where fatalities occur on British soil, the police act on behalf of the coroner’s office ensuring that bodies are not contaminated and that all evidence of any possible crime is preserved. All information recorded by Epic staff is also made available both to the police and the coroner’s office, just in case there are any clues in any of the conversations which may help to solve a crime - if indeed one has been committed.
Logistically, opening Epic could be a nightmare, at any one time there could be between 50 and 75 people present. To suddenly open any office containing that number of staff and maintaining it on a twenty-four-hour rotating shift pattern, could create problems as far as food and equipment is concerned, so right from the start the logistics officer has to contact the catering centre, where the in-flight meals are made and packed. The centre will be advised how many staff require catering and how many shifts are involved. As a priority, catering divert food from aeroplanes to the Epic centre. The food is always business class main meals together with snacks of all sorts including biscuits, cakes, tea, coffee as well as a variety of cold drinks (non-alcoholic). For the early shifts there will be business class breakfasts.
Due to the nature of the business and the requirement for instantly manning the area, check-in staff in Terminal One were always on standby to be called upon to initially run every aspect of EPIC as soon as an incident was declared. They could be in position within five minutes of a shout, getting all of the paperwork in place, advising the switchboard that either one or both carousels would be in operation and to equally split the incoming calls (based on the surname of the passenger). Once the passenger list had been received and the names checked, it might be prudent to change the allocation, so that each carousel would be responsible for about half the list.
When I had arrived, that evening, no information regarding the opening of Epic had been passed to the media. No calls were incoming so we were briefed on how to answer calls. Although all of us on the carousels were employed by British Airways, we were instantly Pan Am staff. Therefore, we answered the phone with “Pan American World Airways, how may I help you”. This was quite a mouthful and most people answered with “Pan American…” or even “Pan Am…”, some people inadvertently said “British Airways…”. But at the end of the day, it didn’t matter, the caller just needed somebody to be there, no matter who, nor which company they worked for, in fact they probably didn’t even hear what we said.
When an incident happens to an aeroplane, everything related to the flight on a computer system is spiked. By that I mean that all data is removed from general access and a copy of the data is frozen in time, nothing can be added, deleted or even viewed. The only people with access to the data will be the BA Security Branch. All of these procedures are in place to stop unauthorised people having any access to the data. It would be worth a fortune for a newspaper to bribe a member of staff anywhere in the world to download and pass on a passenger list. They would have a major scoop and would be banging on the doors of relatives seeking a story, when those people haven’t been advised of an incident or a casualty.
Of course, A copy of the passenger list needed to be made available to EPIC. The EPIC manager would decide if copies needed to be made available to other defined people. In the case of PA103, we didn’t have access to the passenger list, we were not the operating carrier and we had to wait for Pan Am to supply us with the list.
We needed to get the centre open, to start taking calls, to try to link up passengers with next-of-kin. Whilst we didn’t have a passenger list to start with, we did know that there were no survivors. The people named on the passenger list were all deceased.
The EPIC manager contacted the Press Office, who immediately put the message out to the TV media first, followed by the radio media, then the printed media, giving the telephone number to call for information about passengers.
We had TV monitors on within the centre, so knew when the numbers were released to the public. The first calls started to come through within about thirty seconds of the number hitting the screen. Each advert break, end of programme and news bulletin carried the number, along with the fact that there were no survivors. The people knew what they were calling about.
When the message is broadcast the message says something along the lines of “If you wish to find out details of passengers, please call this number.” The number was then broadcast. However, we didn’t know who the passengers were, what we needed was for people who were certain they knew who the passengers were to contact us, so that we could extract the information we needed to establish exactly who every person was who had boarded the aeroplane
We had forms which needed to be filled in with details of the suspected passenger, taking as many personal details as the caller could supply, together with next-of-kin information. With the lack of a passenger list, we couldn’t check to see if the suspected passenger had flown on the aeroplane. That meant that it was very labour intensive to take down details of people who hadn’t travel on the flight as well as those who had.
One question we asked was “Why do you think this passenger was on board the flight?” Sometimes it was a case of “Well I know they were travelling this week…”. The possibility of those passengers actually travelling on PA103, was quite remote although we still had to go through the whole process, just in case!
Eventually the passenger list was available. Staff on the support desk started raising cards. Blue cards for men, pink cards for women and green cards for crew (there was nothing meant in a sexist way with the colours, it was purely to make processing easier when a call came in. Instead of searching each name under a specific initial letter, you would halve the search by looking for the name on either a blue or pink card). On to each card was written the surname (this was the sort order) and the forename(s) plus if available, any relevant details. There were 243 passengers and 16 crew on board at the time of the incident. That would be quite lengthy to write up, check and cross check the cards against the list. Mistakes were the last thing you needed. It could have resulted in the relatives of somebody not on board being told their passenger was on board or equally bad, relatives being told their passenger was not on board, when in fact they were laying on some remote hillside. Accuracy was imperative.
At long last the cards were loaded onto the carousels. The carousels were rather large versions of a Lazy Susan and were about four feet higher than the desk surface with slats all the way up, behind which the cards were dropped so that just the name was visible. This enabled the cards to be spun around so when you needed to check a name, you turned the carousel to the letter you needed, then looked down to find the card. If the name you were looking for was visible you pulled the card out and replaced it with a yellow card with your name on it. You could then fill in the details on the card whilst talking to the caller. If you spun the carousel and found a yellow card where you expected the name would be, you could check with the person named on the card to see if you were both looking for the same passenger. It wasn’t unheard of - on any incident - to have various relatives calling about one passenger. If one of the callers was the next-of-kin, then the card would be given to the staff member dealing with them as they would be the priority informant.
There was, unfortunately, a major fly in the ointment. As it is the job of the police, within the UK, to advise family members of death and as it was a total loss, implicit in telling a caller that their person was listed for the flight, was the message that their person had died.
We weren’t allowed to do that. The instruction we had to work by was “I’m sorry but we are still waiting for the passenger list to be released. If there is any news regarding your passenger, the next-of-kin will be contacted”. We then handed the details to the Met Police officers who could contact officers local to the caller, for them to go around to break the news.
It was an awful situation, but protocol demanded it and we had to comply. The fact was that we had all the boarding cards and we had the passenger list. Every card was checked against the list and we knew exactly who should have been on the aeroplane.
For hours we were not allowed to confirm that a person being discussed was in fact on board the aeroplane, after all to do so would be to confirm that the person had died.
All this changed at about one o’clock in the morning when, due to the numbers of call backs required from the police to confirm that a passenger had actually checked-in, we were advised that we could, at last, confirm that people had checked-in. However, we could not confirm that they had boarded the aeroplane as, although every indication was that they had boarded and we had not been advised of anybody disembarking post check-in, we had not got that information as a solid fact.
After I had answered five or six calls, I had one of life’s cranks on the end of the phone. There we were doing serious work, when I was connected to what sounded like a sweet old lady. I asked her who she was ringing about and she just said “I’m not, but I have a question for you”.
“What’s that?”
“Why do these people put bombs on aeroplanes?”
“Are you calling to discuss a particular passenger?”
“No, but I’ve been on the phone for over an hour wanting to know why people shoot planes down or put bombs on them!”
“I’m sorry Madam but there are genuine people who are calling to find out if their relatives were on board a plane that has crashed, goodbye.” Click!
Perhaps I should explain more about the carousel positions. We sat at what was in effect an octagonal desk with the spinning part in the middle. There was plenty of room to write and place documents. Also on the desk was a box with buttons, a couple of lights and a jack for plugging in headphones, that was the phone part. When you were ready to accept calls you pressed the “available” button which switched your available light on, then allowed the switchboard to send calls down your particular line. Another light would light when a caller was passed through to you, no ringing sounds to disturb anyyone, just a flashing light. Then there was the button to accept a call or terminate it. That is the button I used to get rid of the caller above.
Taking calls was not an easy process. There was a need to explore every means possible to ensure that the person being called about was in fact the person on the passenger list. It was also vitally important to extract as much information out of the caller as possible before giving them the news they had rung in to hear - as once they had been told any bad news it would be very difficult to extract more information.
We needed to know who the next-of-kin was, all available addresses and contact details, the victim’s age and religion plus where possible doctor and dentist details (for identification purposes). Plus anything else that would be relevant to establish the identity of each victim. Only after getting what information we could, would we give the caller what limited information was available and only then if they were the next-of-kin.
One caller I had sounded as if she was an older lady who called in to ask about three young girl students. She gave me their names and I pulled the cards off the carousel. All three were listed and were therefore victims. I started asking her for what information I could get, firstly asking for next-of-kin details. She asked me to wait, then came back and gave me three different names, addresses and telephone numbers, all in the United States. It transpired that they were three of thirty-five passengers who were students from Syracuse University, who participated in the university's Division of International Programs Abroad scheme. They had been studying in London and were returning home for Christmas. I had to explain to the caller that as she was not next-of-kin I was not in a position to give her any information and that should there be a need, the families would be contacted. I could hear her choking up and sobbing, I asked her if she was alright and she said she needed to know if her girls were on board because she was their landlady and they had left their rent payments in her kitchen. They had left too much money and she wasn’t sure whether to leave the change in the kitchen, for when they returned, or if she should send it to the parents.
I explained that I was not in a position to give her the information about the girls as that was for the next-of-kin only. "However," I said, “it would probably be best to send the change to their parents”.
As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t say anything wrong, but I had, hopefully, let her know the situation, so that she could deal with it in her way. I just felt she genuinely needed to know and I apologise if I did wrong.
Calls continued throughout the night.
At around six o’clock in the morning I took a call from a man who was relieved to have got through. He explained that he had been trying to call throughout the night but the lines were too busy for him to get through. He had gone in to work early and was calling from there. I apologised and explained that it had been a very busy night. I asked for the passenger details and immediately found there was a card with the passenger’s name on it. I asked why he thought the passenger was due to be on the flight. He explained that it was his brother and that he had called from the airport to tell him that he’d been asked by his boss at the last minute to cover a meeting for him in New York, he had checked-in and wanted his brother to know he was flying out. That and the fact that nobody else had called so far (no previous annotations on the card) led me to ask about next-of-kin to which I was given details of the passenger’s parents. I explained that if there was any news to be given, it would be given to the next-of-kin. “You can’t do that!” I was told. On enquiring why, I was told that the parents were on a three-week touring holiday of Italy. Those were days well before mobile phones were invented so it was impossible to contact the parents and they were touring without an itinerary, moving on where and when they wanted, but basically were out of reach.
I had no choice, whilst not being the legal next-of-kin, to me he was kin and the only one available to be able to deal with the situation. I already had his contact details, but I asked for his work address details as well. I asked him if there was anybody else where he was and he explained there was a cleaner around. I then said “With deepest sorrow, I regret to inform you that your brother was indeed listed for the flight.” He thanked me just before his sobbing started. He wasn’t the first I had broken the news to, he wasn’t the last, but he was the one that affected me most and I’ve never forgotten him. I handed his details to the police and asked if they could get someone to go to his work to check on him. I felt wretched and know I broke his heart, as I did with others that night. Telling people they have lost someone is not easy, but it has to be done.
I spoke with a few more people about their loved ones and then at around eight o’clock Sir Colin Marshall, at that time CEO of British Airways, arrived in EPIC to see what was happening and to talk to the staff. When he got to me, he thanked me for what I was doing and asked how long I had been on duty there, I told him it was about twelve hours, his reply was that I should leave soon and get some rest. The adrenaline was buzzing around my body, I was comfortable to stay, but knew I should leave.
I handed over my position to a new arrival and wished them luck. I signed off from my shift and made my way out into the cool December air. I stood waiting for a vehicle heading towards the Cargocentre so that I could get my car and drive home. I jumped into the cab of a lorry heading towards the Cargo tunnel and chatted to the driver on the journey through it. After being dropped off, I exited the secure airside area and walked through the car park to my office. I had to explain to my boss that I wouldn’t be at work that day. I made my way to my desk and sat down and just howled.
The enormity of what I had been doing, and the tiredness, hit me like a sledgehammer. I was wrecked. In the middle of a large open plan office I sat sobbing as if someone had told me that I had lost someone. They brought me tea and hot chocolate to try to calm me down, but I was inconsolable. They called my wife and asked her to come and take me home. Eventually she arrived and took me down to the car park. On arrival at home, she packed me off to bed. That didn’t work out as planned, as all I did was lay there mulling over everything that had happened during the night. Eventually she called our doctor and explained the situation, I was given an appointment immediately so that they could check me out. After checking me they decided that I needed an injection to calm me and help me sleep.
Overall that twenty-four hour period was the worst of my life, as it undoubtedly was for countless other people.
On Saturday 21st December 2013, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the disaster, I attended a Service of Remembrance in Westminster Abbey. There were many dignitaries in attendance including Nicola Sturgeon representing the Scottish people on whose territory the disaster happened. The ex-Church of England envoy Terry Waite, who believes the bomb was placed on board the aeroplane in London, was also present.
Five years later, on the 20th December 2018, I travelled to Lockerbie to attend the thirty-year remembrance service at the crash site. Nobody up there knew that I was attending, I booked a hotel for the night and booked train tickets to get me there. I was just going to pay my respects and stay in the background. I had always felt guilty for ruining the lives of so many people by telling them their relatives had died. The memorial building is a delightful place for everybody connected to the disaster to visit. There is a book where you can comment and I did. I then wandered along to the memorial and was surprised to see the number of people there including members of the mountain rescue teams with their dogs. After the service, we were all asked to go to a hall in the town where there would be tea and cakes provided. Local buses picked everybody up from the memorial site and took us to the hall.
From feeling terrible about the part I played in the disaster I was so pleased that I had made the effort to go to Lockerbie. The people I spoke with up there reassured me that I had performed a vital service and family members of the victims I had the fortune to meet, were so kind and generous to me. They explained that no matter who told them they had lost someone, they were grateful to have been told by someone who was compassionate and understanding of their feelings. They were surprised that I was affected in the way I was.
During my visit I was also looked after by representatives of the local council, in particular Gayle Macgregor who not only saw me alone at the memorial site, but invited me to join in with events of the day and kindly transported me between them. Gayle also introduced me to The Rt Hon David Mundell MP who at the time was Secretary of State for Scotland.
I was sorry to leave Lockerbie and the lovely people I met there. My thoughts about what I did on that night of terrorism have been so much better since meeting people involved in various aspects of the disaster and I am really pleased to have visited.
I will be travelling up for the 35th Anniversary in December 2023.
Disclaimer
This is solely my recollection of events of the night of the disaster and since. I apologise if it differs in any way to official versions from the companies and authorities involved.
I joined British Airways as a clerk in the Finance department in September 1972. It was back-office work where the only people to be seen were other staff members.
In early spring 1985, I decided that I had worked for British Airways for so long that I needed to work with some members of the public face to face. I joined a volunteer part of British Airways called EPIC. This is an acronym for the Emergency Procedures Information Centre and is part of their Disaster Management department. The centre was designed for any incident or accident to either a British Airways aircraft or to any third-party aircraft contracted into the system. Should there be an incident to either a British Airways aircraft or an aircraft belonging to a contracted carrier, a dedicated telephone number would be issued to the media (usually during news bulletins) so that families and friends of passengers thought to be on board the aircraft, could call the number to establish whether or not the person they were concerned about, was actually on board.
There was a two-week training course, followed by a further six weeks with just a half a day each week but there was a lot of information to take in. We were taught, amongst a host of other things, the best way to extract from callers, the information we required to be able to ascertain whether or not the caller was talking about a genuine passenger on board a flight. In the 1980s and prior it was not easy to establish who a passenger was, the computer booking system, which was used to issue tickets at that time, was only capable of holding the first nine characters of a surname. This meant that should an enquiry be made about a passenger whose surname was longer than nine characters, we had to do some detective work to establish the probability that this was the person being enquired about. There was no address information on the system. The best information we could get would be a travel agent address if indeed a travel agent was used. Investigations would have to be made through a travel agent to see if we could establish any passenger details they may have. Sometimes, if the ticket was bought with cash, there would be no record of the passenger or his address. Similarly, if the ticket was bought via a third party, there would be no contact details for the passenger.
What we needed was for people to ring in and, without them realising, tell us who the passengers were. Of course, they felt they were ringing in to find out information about their passenger, not supply us with the information. For various reasons, we needed to know the name of the passenger, their address, age/information date of birth, religion, next-of-kin, and any other relevant information including details of who would hold their medical records and dental records as those records may be the only certain means of identification. A specialist team of undertakers was employed in the event that identification was impossible by normal visual means or if it was felt a relative should not be subjected to certain sights.
In 1988 a friend of mine had met the girl of his dreams, and it was arranged for me to meet her as well. As it was coming up for Christmas, we decided that we would go to a Mexican restaurant in Virginia Water. I said that I would meet him there at a quarter to eight in the evening. I arrived early and sat in the car with the radio on. At seven thirty a news bulletin said that an aircraft had crashed in Scotland within the previous half an hour. It took me as long as one millionth of a second to realise that I had to go to EPIC, mobile phones were still many years off, but I had to go - regardless of not being able to tell my friend.
I drove to the Cargocentre and hurried to the Cargo Tunnel. This is a tunnel used to get traffic from the whole cargo village, under the south runway at Heathrow and into the central area. Anybody with an airside pass could wait at a certain point and any transport with a seat available could stop and offer you a lift, regardless of whether it was your company or another. I waited and picked up a lift almost straight away.
EPIC was in the basement of Queens Building (named because Queen Elizabeth II opened it) in the central area, so I headed there. I ran into the building flew down the stairs and passed through the security checks. Once inside EPIC I registered that I was available and was allocated a seat on a carousel. Information was scant regarding the incident but some details were available. The aircraft was a 747, named “Maid of the Seas”, operated by Pan American World Airways, under flight number PA103. The date was 21st of December 1988 and the crash site was Lockerbie.
There were two carousels each capable of accommodating eight people involved in telephone calls plus a supervisor. There were a further 12 support desks, a log-keeper, a communications officer, a member of staff trained in using the flight reservation system, a logistics officer, as well as ad hoc staff together with the Epic manager. Also present was a representative of Pan Am, two police officers from the Metropolitan Police and a representative from the American embassy, although the Ambassador himself attended for some of the time.
Every country in the world has its own method of informing the next of kin of fatalities, for example in the United Kingdom the people to inform of fatalities are the police, whereas in the United States - at that time - it fell upon the fire department. Because of the way next-of-kin are informed in the United Kingdom there needs to be a police presence so that they can pass information to the various forces within Great Britain. Also, where fatalities occur on British soil, the police act on behalf of the coroner’s office ensuring that bodies are not contaminated and that all evidence of any possible crime is preserved. All information recorded by Epic staff is also made available both to the police and the coroner’s office, just in case there are any clues in any of the conversations which may help to solve a crime - if indeed one has been committed.
Logistically, opening Epic could be a nightmare, at any one time there could be between 50 and 75 people present. To suddenly open any office containing that number of staff and maintaining it on a twenty-four-hour rotating shift pattern, could create problems as far as food and equipment is concerned, so right from the start the logistics officer has to contact the catering centre, where the in-flight meals are made and packed. The centre will be advised how many staff require catering and how many shifts are involved. As a priority, catering divert food from aeroplanes to the Epic centre. The food is always business class main meals together with snacks of all sorts including biscuits, cakes, tea, coffee as well as a variety of cold drinks (non-alcoholic). For the early shifts there will be business class breakfasts.
Due to the nature of the business and the requirement for instantly manning the area, check-in staff in Terminal One were always on standby to be called upon to initially run every aspect of EPIC as soon as an incident was declared. They could be in position within five minutes of a shout, getting all of the paperwork in place, advising the switchboard that either one or both carousels would be in operation and to equally split the incoming calls (based on the surname of the passenger). Once the passenger list had been received and the names checked, it might be prudent to change the allocation, so that each carousel would be responsible for about half the list.
When I had arrived, that evening, no information regarding the opening of Epic had been passed to the media. No calls were incoming so we were briefed on how to answer calls. Although all of us on the carousels were employed by British Airways, we were instantly Pan Am staff. Therefore, we answered the phone with “Pan American World Airways, how may I help you”. This was quite a mouthful and most people answered with “Pan American…” or even “Pan Am…”, some people inadvertently said “British Airways…”. But at the end of the day, it didn’t matter, the caller just needed somebody to be there, no matter who, nor which company they worked for, in fact they probably didn’t even hear what we said.
When an incident happens to an aeroplane, everything related to the flight on a computer system is spiked. By that I mean that all data is removed from general access and a copy of the data is frozen in time, nothing can be added, deleted or even viewed. The only people with access to the data will be the BA Security Branch. All of these procedures are in place to stop unauthorised people having any access to the data. It would be worth a fortune for a newspaper to bribe a member of staff anywhere in the world to download and pass on a passenger list. They would have a major scoop and would be banging on the doors of relatives seeking a story, when those people haven’t been advised of an incident or a casualty.
Of course, A copy of the passenger list needed to be made available to EPIC. The EPIC manager would decide if copies needed to be made available to other defined people. In the case of PA103, we didn’t have access to the passenger list, we were not the operating carrier and we had to wait for Pan Am to supply us with the list.
We needed to get the centre open, to start taking calls, to try to link up passengers with next-of-kin. Whilst we didn’t have a passenger list to start with, we did know that there were no survivors. The people named on the passenger list were all deceased.
The EPIC manager contacted the Press Office, who immediately put the message out to the TV media first, followed by the radio media, then the printed media, giving the telephone number to call for information about passengers.
We had TV monitors on within the centre, so knew when the numbers were released to the public. The first calls started to come through within about thirty seconds of the number hitting the screen. Each advert break, end of programme and news bulletin carried the number, along with the fact that there were no survivors. The people knew what they were calling about.
When the message is broadcast the message says something along the lines of “If you wish to find out details of passengers, please call this number.” The number was then broadcast. However, we didn’t know who the passengers were, what we needed was for people who were certain they knew who the passengers were to contact us, so that we could extract the information we needed to establish exactly who every person was who had boarded the aeroplane
We had forms which needed to be filled in with details of the suspected passenger, taking as many personal details as the caller could supply, together with next-of-kin information. With the lack of a passenger list, we couldn’t check to see if the suspected passenger had flown on the aeroplane. That meant that it was very labour intensive to take down details of people who hadn’t travel on the flight as well as those who had.
One question we asked was “Why do you think this passenger was on board the flight?” Sometimes it was a case of “Well I know they were travelling this week…”. The possibility of those passengers actually travelling on PA103, was quite remote although we still had to go through the whole process, just in case!
Eventually the passenger list was available. Staff on the support desk started raising cards. Blue cards for men, pink cards for women and green cards for crew (there was nothing meant in a sexist way with the colours, it was purely to make processing easier when a call came in. Instead of searching each name under a specific initial letter, you would halve the search by looking for the name on either a blue or pink card). On to each card was written the surname (this was the sort order) and the forename(s) plus if available, any relevant details. There were 243 passengers and 16 crew on board at the time of the incident. That would be quite lengthy to write up, check and cross check the cards against the list. Mistakes were the last thing you needed. It could have resulted in the relatives of somebody not on board being told their passenger was on board or equally bad, relatives being told their passenger was not on board, when in fact they were laying on some remote hillside. Accuracy was imperative.
At long last the cards were loaded onto the carousels. The carousels were rather large versions of a Lazy Susan and were about four feet higher than the desk surface with slats all the way up, behind which the cards were dropped so that just the name was visible. This enabled the cards to be spun around so when you needed to check a name, you turned the carousel to the letter you needed, then looked down to find the card. If the name you were looking for was visible you pulled the card out and replaced it with a yellow card with your name on it. You could then fill in the details on the card whilst talking to the caller. If you spun the carousel and found a yellow card where you expected the name would be, you could check with the person named on the card to see if you were both looking for the same passenger. It wasn’t unheard of - on any incident - to have various relatives calling about one passenger. If one of the callers was the next-of-kin, then the card would be given to the staff member dealing with them as they would be the priority informant.
There was, unfortunately, a major fly in the ointment. As it is the job of the police, within the UK, to advise family members of death and as it was a total loss, implicit in telling a caller that their person was listed for the flight, was the message that their person had died.
We weren’t allowed to do that. The instruction we had to work by was “I’m sorry but we are still waiting for the passenger list to be released. If there is any news regarding your passenger, the next-of-kin will be contacted”. We then handed the details to the Met Police officers who could contact officers local to the caller, for them to go around to break the news.
It was an awful situation, but protocol demanded it and we had to comply. The fact was that we had all the boarding cards and we had the passenger list. Every card was checked against the list and we knew exactly who should have been on the aeroplane.
For hours we were not allowed to confirm that a person being discussed was in fact on board the aeroplane, after all to do so would be to confirm that the person had died.
All this changed at about one o’clock in the morning when, due to the numbers of call backs required from the police to confirm that a passenger had actually checked-in, we were advised that we could, at last, confirm that people had checked-in. However, we could not confirm that they had boarded the aeroplane as, although every indication was that they had boarded and we had not been advised of anybody disembarking post check-in, we had not got that information as a solid fact.
After I had answered five or six calls, I had one of life’s cranks on the end of the phone. There we were doing serious work, when I was connected to what sounded like a sweet old lady. I asked her who she was ringing about and she just said “I’m not, but I have a question for you”.
“What’s that?”
“Why do these people put bombs on aeroplanes?”
“Are you calling to discuss a particular passenger?”
“No, but I’ve been on the phone for over an hour wanting to know why people shoot planes down or put bombs on them!”
“I’m sorry Madam but there are genuine people who are calling to find out if their relatives were on board a plane that has crashed, goodbye.” Click!
Perhaps I should explain more about the carousel positions. We sat at what was in effect an octagonal desk with the spinning part in the middle. There was plenty of room to write and place documents. Also on the desk was a box with buttons, a couple of lights and a jack for plugging in headphones, that was the phone part. When you were ready to accept calls you pressed the “available” button which switched your available light on, then allowed the switchboard to send calls down your particular line. Another light would light when a caller was passed through to you, no ringing sounds to disturb anyyone, just a flashing light. Then there was the button to accept a call or terminate it. That is the button I used to get rid of the caller above.
Taking calls was not an easy process. There was a need to explore every means possible to ensure that the person being called about was in fact the person on the passenger list. It was also vitally important to extract as much information out of the caller as possible before giving them the news they had rung in to hear - as once they had been told any bad news it would be very difficult to extract more information.
We needed to know who the next-of-kin was, all available addresses and contact details, the victim’s age and religion plus where possible doctor and dentist details (for identification purposes). Plus anything else that would be relevant to establish the identity of each victim. Only after getting what information we could, would we give the caller what limited information was available and only then if they were the next-of-kin.
One caller I had sounded as if she was an older lady who called in to ask about three young girl students. She gave me their names and I pulled the cards off the carousel. All three were listed and were therefore victims. I started asking her for what information I could get, firstly asking for next-of-kin details. She asked me to wait, then came back and gave me three different names, addresses and telephone numbers, all in the United States. It transpired that they were three of thirty-five passengers who were students from Syracuse University, who participated in the university's Division of International Programs Abroad scheme. They had been studying in London and were returning home for Christmas. I had to explain to the caller that as she was not next-of-kin I was not in a position to give her any information and that should there be a need, the families would be contacted. I could hear her choking up and sobbing, I asked her if she was alright and she said she needed to know if her girls were on board because she was their landlady and they had left their rent payments in her kitchen. They had left too much money and she wasn’t sure whether to leave the change in the kitchen, for when they returned, or if she should send it to the parents.
I explained that I was not in a position to give her the information about the girls as that was for the next-of-kin only. "However," I said, “it would probably be best to send the change to their parents”.
As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t say anything wrong, but I had, hopefully, let her know the situation, so that she could deal with it in her way. I just felt she genuinely needed to know and I apologise if I did wrong.
Calls continued throughout the night.
At around six o’clock in the morning I took a call from a man who was relieved to have got through. He explained that he had been trying to call throughout the night but the lines were too busy for him to get through. He had gone in to work early and was calling from there. I apologised and explained that it had been a very busy night. I asked for the passenger details and immediately found there was a card with the passenger’s name on it. I asked why he thought the passenger was due to be on the flight. He explained that it was his brother and that he had called from the airport to tell him that he’d been asked by his boss at the last minute to cover a meeting for him in New York, he had checked-in and wanted his brother to know he was flying out. That and the fact that nobody else had called so far (no previous annotations on the card) led me to ask about next-of-kin to which I was given details of the passenger’s parents. I explained that if there was any news to be given, it would be given to the next-of-kin. “You can’t do that!” I was told. On enquiring why, I was told that the parents were on a three-week touring holiday of Italy. Those were days well before mobile phones were invented so it was impossible to contact the parents and they were touring without an itinerary, moving on where and when they wanted, but basically were out of reach.
I had no choice, whilst not being the legal next-of-kin, to me he was kin and the only one available to be able to deal with the situation. I already had his contact details, but I asked for his work address details as well. I asked him if there was anybody else where he was and he explained there was a cleaner around. I then said “With deepest sorrow, I regret to inform you that your brother was indeed listed for the flight.” He thanked me just before his sobbing started. He wasn’t the first I had broken the news to, he wasn’t the last, but he was the one that affected me most and I’ve never forgotten him. I handed his details to the police and asked if they could get someone to go to his work to check on him. I felt wretched and know I broke his heart, as I did with others that night. Telling people they have lost someone is not easy, but it has to be done.
I spoke with a few more people about their loved ones and then at around eight o’clock Sir Colin Marshall, at that time CEO of British Airways, arrived in EPIC to see what was happening and to talk to the staff. When he got to me, he thanked me for what I was doing and asked how long I had been on duty there, I told him it was about twelve hours, his reply was that I should leave soon and get some rest. The adrenaline was buzzing around my body, I was comfortable to stay, but knew I should leave.
I handed over my position to a new arrival and wished them luck. I signed off from my shift and made my way out into the cool December air. I stood waiting for a vehicle heading towards the Cargocentre so that I could get my car and drive home. I jumped into the cab of a lorry heading towards the Cargo tunnel and chatted to the driver on the journey through it. After being dropped off, I exited the secure airside area and walked through the car park to my office. I had to explain to my boss that I wouldn’t be at work that day. I made my way to my desk and sat down and just howled.
The enormity of what I had been doing, and the tiredness, hit me like a sledgehammer. I was wrecked. In the middle of a large open plan office I sat sobbing as if someone had told me that I had lost someone. They brought me tea and hot chocolate to try to calm me down, but I was inconsolable. They called my wife and asked her to come and take me home. Eventually she arrived and took me down to the car park. On arrival at home, she packed me off to bed. That didn’t work out as planned, as all I did was lay there mulling over everything that had happened during the night. Eventually she called our doctor and explained the situation, I was given an appointment immediately so that they could check me out. After checking me they decided that I needed an injection to calm me and help me sleep.
Overall that twenty-four hour period was the worst of my life, as it undoubtedly was for countless other people.
On Saturday 21st December 2013, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the disaster, I attended a Service of Remembrance in Westminster Abbey. There were many dignitaries in attendance including Nicola Sturgeon representing the Scottish people on whose territory the disaster happened. The ex-Church of England envoy Terry Waite, who believes the bomb was placed on board the aeroplane in London, was also present.
Five years later, on the 20th December 2018, I travelled to Lockerbie to attend the thirty-year remembrance service at the crash site. Nobody up there knew that I was attending, I booked a hotel for the night and booked train tickets to get me there. I was just going to pay my respects and stay in the background. I had always felt guilty for ruining the lives of so many people by telling them their relatives had died. The memorial building is a delightful place for everybody connected to the disaster to visit. There is a book where you can comment and I did. I then wandered along to the memorial and was surprised to see the number of people there including members of the mountain rescue teams with their dogs. After the service, we were all asked to go to a hall in the town where there would be tea and cakes provided. Local buses picked everybody up from the memorial site and took us to the hall.
From feeling terrible about the part I played in the disaster I was so pleased that I had made the effort to go to Lockerbie. The people I spoke with up there reassured me that I had performed a vital service and family members of the victims I had the fortune to meet, were so kind and generous to me. They explained that no matter who told them they had lost someone, they were grateful to have been told by someone who was compassionate and understanding of their feelings. They were surprised that I was affected in the way I was.
During my visit I was also looked after by representatives of the local council, in particular Gayle Macgregor who not only saw me alone at the memorial site, but invited me to join in with events of the day and kindly transported me between them. Gayle also introduced me to The Rt Hon David Mundell MP who at the time was Secretary of State for Scotland.
I was sorry to leave Lockerbie and the lovely people I met there. My thoughts about what I did on that night of terrorism have been so much better since meeting people involved in various aspects of the disaster and I am really pleased to have visited.
I will be travelling up for the 35th Anniversary in December 2023.
Disclaimer
This is solely my recollection of events of the night of the disaster and since. I apologise if it differs in any way to official versions from the companies and authorities involved.
