The Horsell's Mouth Politics, pedantry and personal interests

One Thursday morning in the Christmas school holidays of 1988, I remember going into my parents bedroom and they told me that a plane had crashed in Scotland and a lot of people had been killed. On the news, the image of the cockpit section of the Boeing 747 Clipper Maid of the Seas was being broadcast everywhere along with rough sketches of what had occurred.

Later that week, my Dad discovered that a business associate of his, Richard Cawley, had been aboard Pan-Am flight 103 and while I was too young at the time for this information to register it demonstrates that the number of those affected by the horrible events of that day went beyond even the 270 innocent people on board and on the ground and their families, who have suffered so much.

Years later, two Libyans stood trial for their part in bringing down the plane and one, Abdelbaset al Megrahi was found guilty. Now it looks as if he will be freed on compassionate grounds in a decision sure to cool further the Anglo-American relationship – one being made by an SNP politician in Edinburgh.

The fact that the conviction itself is patently unsafe is not relevant. My own opinion has long been that Pan-Am Flight 103 was not brought down by a bomb at all and that in an incident similar to United Airlines Flight 811 and China Airlines Flight 611, the front starboard cargo door sprung open in flight, causing an explosive decompression and disintegration. Al Megrahi may have been involved in purchasing explosives, which may have detonated during the decompression, but I have never believed this was the initial event that caused the crash.

Aside from the legal arguments, the point is this – that the currency of the UK’s “special relationship” with America now rests with nationalist politicians in Edinburgh – an unwelcome side-effect of a poorly thought-out devolution.