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Tags Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi , Lockerbie bombing , Pan Am 103

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Old 20th November 2009, 07:22 AM   #201
Rolfe
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Court judgement. PA103A left Frankfurt for London at 16.53. That has got to be local time, to correlate with a Heathrow landing time of 17.40. There's no way in aviation a plane leaving Frankfurt at 16.53 GMT could get to Heathrow by 17.40 GMT.

This is paragraph 29, which describes all the baggage movements at Frankfurt, and there's nothing at all to suggest that the times quoted aren't all in local time. That includes the "beginn 13.04" and "ende 13.10" (disputed) from Koca, and the note of the wagon of baggage from KM 180 in position at 12.48 and arriving at 13.01 for coding. (BTW, I think that must be the other document referred to by Coleman, the one he said was typewritten. There are only three documents referred to in court, which tie in perfectly with what Coleman reported in 1994 about the Frankfurt police only handing over three documents. I find this extraordinarily interesting.)

I repeat here the whole of paragraph 30, which is all that's said about Bogomira.

Quote:
Mrs Bogomira Erac, a computer programmer employed at the airport, was on duty on 21 December 1988. She heard of the loss of PA103 during the evening of that day and realised that PA103A had departed during her period on duty. She was interested in the amount of baggage on the Frankfurt flight, and on the following morning she decided to take a printout of the information as to baggage held on the computer in case it should contain any useful information. She did not at once identify any such information, but retained the printout, which later was given to investigators. The printout is production 1060, and includes the following entry:-

Container no. Flight no. Counter no. Time leave store Time at gate
B8849 F1042 S0009+Z1307 TO HS33+Z1517 B044+Z1523

The document itself contains no column headings, and those set out above are derived from the evidence showing how the printout is to be interpreted, by reference to the codes in operation at the time. The document therefore bears to record that an item coded at station 206 at 1307 was transferred and delivered to the appropriate gate to be loaded on board PA103A.

So, it doesn't say she made the printout the following day, it's open to conclude that on the following day she took a printout that was already available. But the motivation stated does conflict with what she said on The Conspiracy Files.

I'm going for local times. The printout was made half an hour before PA103 blew up. It could not have been made in response to the disaster. Why would any system mandate the printing out of such data more than an hour and a half after the plane in question took off, only for it to be thrown away the following day? And yet that's what we're supposed to believe.

Bogomira simply put the printout that already existed in her locker. Either because she thought it might be useful for evidence, or as her own personal memento.

Take it from here.

Rolfe.
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Old 20th November 2009, 08:14 AM   #202
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Next question. Where did the other two documents come from?

Three documents, neatly annotated to show how this mystery bag had come through to PA103A from KM180, were given to the Scottish police in August, by the BKA. One was the Erac printout, and we know how they're supposed to have got that. One was Koca's worksheet from station 206, with the ambiguous finish time on it that could have been 13.10 or 13.16. The third was Andreas Schreiner's interline writer's sheet (I'm assuming that's Coleman's "typewritten document"), "That bears to record one wagon of baggage from KM180, in position at 1248, arriving at V3 at 1301."

So, where did these latter two come from?

The police had them. When did they get them? Bogomira didn't keep those. I would guess the answer has to be in their visit to the airport within a few days of the crash.

How did they know they should seize or keep documents relating to KM180? I presume they had no way to know that, so the implicaton has to be that they kept all similar documents - handwritten worksheets and interline writers' sheets.

All of this was missing when Phipps and Jones showed up, on 23rd January. They said that the documents couldn't have been taken by the police, because it would have been SOP for PA to have retained copies of these documents. What they don't say is what, if anything, the airport staff told them had happened to the documents and why there were no copies.

I can't see any other explanation but that the police did in fact take these documents, and who knows what else. Maybe the really important stuff, the computer records, weren't avaliable because the tape had been wiped, and Bogomira threw away all the printouts except the PA103A one. So maybe the documents they did have (worksheets and so on) made no sense, and only became useful when the printout showed up.

Maybe they kept schtumm about all this until August for the same reason as Henderson wouldn't involve the FBI team in tracing the origin of the timer fragment. Because this was their baby and they were damn well going to hold it close.

But hang on. It's not unreasonable that the search for the timer manufacturer took so long. They had no clue where to look. The BKA had only a limited amount of paper. How long was it going to take to go through that, for pity's sake?

Let's assume they had that short loading printout, plus the worksheets and so on for the whole airport. So they have to look at every piece of luggage on the printout, see where and when it was coded, and collate that with the worksheets to see which plane it came off. Presumably they also collated that with the passenger list for PA103A to match bags with passengers, to come to the conclusion that this one bag, apparently from KA180, was unaccompanied because no passenger was booked to make that transfer. (Not surprisingly, because there was about a 4-hour gap between those planes - passengers on KM180 who were really going to New York went on an earlier flight and arrived safely.)

How long does all that take, guys? A huge terrorist outrage, and you take seven months to work this out?

Then you only hand over these three documents, and you don't show your working?

Somewhere else I read criticism of the Scottish police, saying they were wrong to accept the BKA's investigation into the baggage records and that they sbould have carried out their own. Boy, I wonder what that would have revealed? At least, ask to see the reconciliation for the rest of the bags, so be satisfied that all of these have come either from the Frankfurt checkin desks or from flights which had passengers booked for transfer to PA103A.

But no. Trust us, DC Scotland, we've been through all this and that's the bag you're looking for. Oh thanks, BKA, that's great.

Rolfe.
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Old 20th November 2009, 08:35 AM   #203
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Can someone explain the printout a bit better for me?

There seem to be about 121 items recorded.

Originally Posted by The Trail of the Octopus
The BKA estimate that 'about' 135 bags were sent through to the baggage room below the departure gate of Flight 103A, some belonging to the 79 passengers whose journey ended in London and the rest to the 49 who were going on to New York. There were no records of luggage sent directly to the departure gate, nor of interline luggage taken directly from one aircraft to another, nor of bags belonging to first-class passengers.

So that's about 14 more bags put on the plane that weren't on Bogomira's printout.

Quote:
Of the 49 passengers bound for New York and beyond, 28 began their journey in Frankfurt, and 21 transferred from other connecting flights.

So, only 21 passengers of the 128 transferred through from another flight to PA103A and then to PA103. I note that 22 items on the printout have an extra 2-letter code in the lines, making them stick out to the right. The mystery item is one of these.

I've been wondering what that signifies. It's obvious that a lot of the items on that list must originate from the Frankfurt checkin desks, as it includes a lot of luggage from passengers who began their journeys at Frankfurt. Surely it can't be as simple as the ones with the extra letters being the ones from connecting flights? (I'd have expected there to have been more, as my guess would be that some of the passengers on PA103A who didn't transfer to PA103 would also have come off connecting flights, so more than 21 or 22.)

Thinking about it, it seems to me that more documentation must have been available to the court. Paul Foot reports the defence advocate spending a lot of time going through this evidence trying to show that the mystery bag could have come from somewhere else, such as Warsaw or Damascus. I don't have it here, but there was other information such as half a container of Damascus luggage that could have been coded at 206 although most of it was coded somewhere else.

So perhaps the BKA really did produce the rest of the worksheets and so on in court.

I'm massively suspicious of all this, especially the 7-month delay to accomplish what should have been a relatively simple exercise. Even if they wanted to hand it over to the Scottish police all neatly wrapped up with a ribbon round it, why wasn't that done within a couple of weeks?

Rolfe.
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Old 20th November 2009, 10:04 AM   #204
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You want to know what I'm thinking? (For now, anyway.)

The BKA showed up at the airport within a few days of the crash and got the lot. Worksheets, interline documents, the computer tape along with any backups, and the routine printouts. And they didn't let anyone keep copies. And nobody in the airport was keen to talk about this, because it was all about concealing shenanigans in the airport, which was to their own advantage.

The police promptly sat on the lot, and denied there was anything of any importance. (What I don't know is who, apart from Jones and Phipps, asked any questions about where the records had gone, and if so what answers they got.)

Then, in about August, as part of an exercise to draw attention away from items introduced at Heathrow and Frankfurt, it was decided to produce evidence that a suspicious item had come through the Frankfurt system from another airport. At this stage, sufficient of what had been seized was produced to support that proposition, but anything that might confuse the issue or suggest another explanation was not produced. Hence the continuing absence of the loading records for PA103A itself.

The crucial pieces of evidence were the computer baggage records, which existed in printed form as well as computer tape, the coder's worksheet, and the interline record. There was no problem releasing all or most of the coders' worksheets and interline documents that had been seized, however there was a problem with the crucial computer record. Only the PA103A listing was to be revealed, not those for any other flight. Thus Mrs Erac was somehow co-opted to "find" the relevant printout in isolation, and the tapes and the rest of the printouts could be concealed. She did this, but tended to get a bit forgetful as to exactly what story she'd decided on to explain the find.

Whether anything was actually falsified, I'm not speculating at the moment.

This is probably wrong, somebody probably has a link to something proving it couldn't have been like that, but hey, I'm trying here.

Rolfe.
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Old 20th November 2009, 11:49 AM   #205
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
Court judgement. PA103A left Frankfurt for London at 16.53. That has got to be local time, to correlate with a Heathrow landing time of 17.40. There's no way in aviation a plane leaving Frankfurt at 16.53 GMT could get to Heathrow by 17.40 GMT.
Possibly inconsequential, but having flown Glasgow-Amsterdam, considered to be a 1hr 35 to 1hr 50 journey, and London-Paris given as anywhere between 1hr 10 and 1hr 30, on several occassions both are usually considerably shorter, if congestion is avoided. Still, as you state, I would also find Frankfurt to Heathrow in 45mins a stretch, especially given the time of year we discussing, but not entirely impossible.

Quote:
This is paragraph 29, which describes all the baggage movements at Frankfurt, and there's nothing at all to suggest that the times quoted aren't all in local time. That includes the "beginn 13.04" and "ende 13.10" (disputed) from Koca, and the note of the wagon of baggage from KM 180 in position at 12.48 and arriving at 13.01 for coding. (BTW, I think that must be the other document referred to by Coleman, the one he said was typewritten. There are only three documents referred to in court, which tie in perfectly with what Coleman reported in 1994 about the Frankfurt police only handing over three documents. I find this extraordinarily interesting.)

I repeat here the whole of paragraph 30, which is all that's said about Bogomira.

Mrs Bogomira Erac, a computer programmer employed at the airport, was on duty on 21 December 1988. She heard of the loss of PA103 during the evening of that day and realised that PA103A had departed during her period on duty. She was interested in the amount of baggage on the Frankfurt flight, and on the following morning she decided to take a printout of the information as to baggage held on the computer in case it should contain any useful information. She did not at once identify any such information, but retained the printout, which later was given to investigators. The printout is production 1060, and includes the following entry:-

Container no. Flight no. Counter no. Time leave store Time at gate
B8849 F1042 S0009+Z1307 TO HS33+Z1517 B044+Z1523

The document itself contains no column headings, and those set out above are derived from the evidence showing how the printout is to be interpreted, by reference to the codes in operation at the time. The document therefore bears to record that an item coded at station 206 at 1307 was transferred and delivered to the appropriate gate to be loaded on board PA103A.



So, it doesn't say she made the printout the following day, it's open to conclude that on the following day she took a printout that was already available. But the motivation stated does conflict with what she said on The Conspiracy Files.

I'm going for local times. The printout was made half an hour before PA103 blew up. It could not have been made in response to the disaster. Why would any system mandate the printing out of such data more than an hour and a half after the plane in question took off, only for it to be thrown away the following day? And yet that's what we're supposed to believe.

Bogomira simply put the printout that already existed in her locker. Either because she thought it might be useful for evidence, or as her own personal memento.

Take it from here.

Rolfe.
From the language carefully chosen in the judgement (my bold), it conveys to me that she initiated printing it from the computer the following day, as the judges assert. To me, the wording implies that the information was still only contained within the computer and she decided (before it was purged) to take/make a copy. However, the printout being generated the following day as indicated by the judges, and by my interpretation of their phraseology, does not then tie-up with the time and date stamp on the printout, however we wish to define them.


Indeed, as you mention it wouldn't make sense for documents to be printed on an evening relating to flights earlier that day, only to be destroyed the following day. Although, listening to one story that is what we're led to believe that was the case. Quite why, if she thought of the possibility of saving any "useful information" pertaining to 103/103A, she would then decide to put it in her locker while she goes on holiday - not for a day or two - for 3 or 4 weeks? Together with the knowledge that irrelevant of the cause of the disaster, ablsolutely any and every piece of documentation and records relating to the associated 103 flight from Frankfurt will be eagerly sought after by all investigators. Even initial reports indicated the possibility of something other than just structural damage had caused the crash.

I'm interested if this would be an airport system automatically generated these printouts - even allowing for the puzzling time lapses - or if it's a printout that would have to be manually retrieved from the computer?

1932 would indicate an automated printout generated, which Mrs Erac managed to track down the following day, before being dumped, and retain it in her locker. In her latter account however, where she intimates that apparently no one had shown any interest in documentation relating to 103A, even the day following 103's crash, and despite the judges claims that Erac had immediately concerned herself with luggage records on hearing of the 103 crash, she says "..I was just about ready to do that with this one, when, on the spur of the moment, I just picked it up and put it on the table..". Which, of course, directly opposes the judges summation of the events which led to the printout being generated, and in addition, noticed and retained for a specific purpose.

Finally (for the moment), many happy returns!

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Old 20th November 2009, 03:18 PM   #206
Caustic Logic
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I forgot that today would be Friday. Aplogoies for making a big deal of "being right" and then shown maybe not quite well, and now no time to tackle the gap. (extra work on Fri). Rolfe, run on ahead, as you have, as you're probably right having heard my whole case and being sure here after that. But my previous view made so much sense to me I'll have to take time and double check some things before I can join back up, and no comment yet on anything past that.

Adam
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Old 20th November 2009, 04:57 PM   #207
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Just a moment Mrs Erac.

You have your wits about you to realise on hearing the news of the crash of 103 over Lockerbie, that the Frankfurt feeder flight 103A had been loaded during your shift that day, and your job being an airport technician for Frankfurt, decided to take a record of the baggage details, as one would expect an airport technician to do?

And inadvertently placed this document in your locker?

As an airport technician for Frankfurt, who's primary role as is to maintain required airport records, the significant implications you yourself had realised, and with the knowledge that Pan Am 103 had been the victim of a bomb, you then kept this document undisclosed for a further X weeks?
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Old 20th November 2009, 05:44 PM   #208
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
I forgot that today would be Friday. Aplogoies for making a big deal of "being right" and then shown maybe not quite well, and now no time to tackle the gap. (extra work on Fri). Rolfe, run on ahead, as you have, as you're probably right having heard my whole case and being sure here after that. But my previous view made so much sense to me I'll have to take time and double check some things before I can join back up, and no comment yet on anything past that.

Adam

Not to worry, I was having a "don't want to work I'm tired and it's my birthday" morning.

I'd never in my life heard of GMT or UTC being recorded as "Z" time. I didn't have a clue what you were on about. Now I have, I can see what you mean, but I just don't find the point convincing. I don't see any evidence that an airport-based system (as opposed to an aircraft or aircraft controllers) would use anything but local time. The comment about the coders probably writing down the times from looking at their watches rather than the computer clock rather supports that, as it seems unlikely that baggage handlers would, or should need to, alter their watches when going on-shift.

To Buncrana's point. Indeed, sometimes planes do make up time. However, doing a 1 hour 40 minute flight in less than 50 minutes is pushing it! I can't honestly see it over the distance involved. Also, the plane is said to have landed later than scheduled. If the pilot shaved almost an hour off the advertised flight time, how late did it leave for goodness sake? Given that the advertised flight time is 1 hour 40 minutes (actually, that's both the standard and the fastest as far as I could see - one or two were 1 hour 50 minutes), and we have a choice of flight times of either 1 hour 47 minues (local time at Frankfurt) or 47 minutes (GMT at Frankfurt), which do you think is the more likely?

Also, since everyone who flies at all knows that flight times are always advertised as "local time", don't you think there would have been some clarification by the judges if all these Frankfurt times were actually GMT?

Rolfe.
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Old 20th November 2009, 05:55 PM   #209
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Here's something else, maybe nothing. Looking at the Erac printout, a four digit number I'm wondering about. In the upper left, under KIK (which was I think Bogomira's station). 1932. It's to the left of a date, so is it a time?



1653 departure, 22 minutes after the last two items arrived for loading at the second gate, B041. So it's not a time relating to the flight pulled up as 1042. Is it the time of data retrieval or printing? That's been said to be the next morning, but 1932 is evening. And the DATEI next to that, on the same data line, is 881221, not 1222. So if not access/print time and date, then what else might these represent?

Let's get back to that bloody printout for a minute.

Caustic Logic first noticed the apparent time-and-date. However, in his blog, he points out that "DATEI VON:881221" signifies data from 21st December 1988, not the date the printout was made. I think he's right about that,

So are we even right about the "1932" being the time the printout was made? I would have expected such a time, if recorded, to be accompanied by the date. But if the date beside it isn't the date the printout was made, then it isn't.

It's certainly essential that the "211288" be on that printout. Otherwise it could be PA103A for any damn day you like. It's not essential to have the date the printout was made, and indeed now this has been clarified, I don't see another date that might be it. So why is 1932 the time of the prinout?

I think we might be making a false assumption here, and it may be that we have no idea at all when that printout was made.

Which makes Bogomira's actions and fluctuating account the interesting bit.

This is even weirder than the two page 51s.

Rolfe.
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Old 20th November 2009, 06:47 PM   #210
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I can chime in a bit on the time issue. From the fact that the current baggage system is running under OpenVMS, it is reasonable to assume that the original system was also running the VMS operating system (and probably a DEC VAX780 being a common platform for realtime systems in that era). VMS until quite recently did not understand timezones. Changing the computer time twice a year required changing the computers real time clock which would wreak havoc on scheduling realtime events based on that time. The best option is to leave the system in the same timezone year round and since there exists one universal time zone that is already unambiguous, UTC is the obvious choice.

I talked to a DEC engineer that was responsible for this part of the system back in the '90s and they too would have liked to change the way the system handled time but the current structure was too ingrained throughout the system and was going to require a major restructuring of the code to make the change.
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Old 21st November 2009, 12:17 AM   #211
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Dan O. View Post
I can chime in a bit on the time issue. From the fact that the current baggage system is running under OpenVMS, it is reasonable to assume that the original system was also running the VMS operating system (and probably a DEC VAX780 being a common platform for realtime systems in that era). VMS until quite recently did not understand timezones. Changing the computer time twice a year required changing the computers real time clock which would wreak havoc on scheduling realtime events based on that time. The best option is to leave the system in the same timezone year round and since there exists one universal time zone that is already unambiguous, UTC is the obvious choice.

I talked to a DEC engineer that was responsible for this part of the system back in the '90s and they too would have liked to change the way the system handled time but the current structure was too ingrained throughout the system and was going to require a major restructuring of the code to make the change.
Okay... I'm starting here because I'm still at the decision point and will catch up with intervening points after.

So Dan O., How do you know so much? Would you agree then that a computer system like this would normally run in GMT time? I think Rolfe's made a good case why this is likely local - from what you know how plausible is that?

Now on the flight time - 100 min. is about standard flight time from Frankfurt to London. Do we know this is actual flight time, or does it include loading, taxiing, etc.? Is it a loose estimate to allow for possible delays?

On the Z, I think Zeit makes sense, if a bit redundant. The second one you proposed, goal, makes no sense next to a time. I still just feel that Zulu is the most obvious candidate, IF it fits the facts, and zwieback is probably the least likely. Also some minor points I saw - if 103A landed at Heathrow 5:40 you stated it had 20 min to switch its load over, but 103 had to take off around 6:25 to make 7:03 38 min later, right? So that would be 45 minutes.

Okay, now the case for local time sounds good but a little iffy, so I checked if we could just rule out a 727 (which 103A was) making the short time that I've proposed without realizing it. If it's impossible or unlikely enough, then that's that. Here, you can follow my work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_727
.81 mach cruising speed, .9 mach top speed. This site also clarifies the speed applies to both 727-100 and 727-200 class, which is good cause I don’t know which this was. Converting mach to mph looks complicated. Can we just get that in mph please?
http://www.boeing.com/history/boeing/727.html
Top speed: 632 mph. Cruising speed: 570 mph. But is this statute or nautical mils?
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/jetliner/b727/
cruise speed: 570 mph (915 km/h) at 24,600 ft (7,530 m)
km doesn't change, so pulling up conversions
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/ucg/
1 km= 0.539612 nm, would yield 494 nm/hr
1km = 0.621371 sm, would yield 568.5 mph
It’s statute. So, it normally flew at about 570 statute miles/hr, cruising speed at cruising altitude, and could edge up as high as 600 plus if need be. To simplfy then, I’ll use a steady 570 with no extra gas, and presume a straight-line flight. According to Google maps, a straight line from Frankfurt to London is almost exactly 400 statute miles.

Flight time: 42 minutes.

I actually didn't expect such a different time. I know this can't mean that's how long it would take, we have various courses possible, and "winter" may have had some effect (or not, depending on precise conditions) but it gives us an idea of what's plausible, and in fact I'm having a hard time seeing how from wheel up to wheels down they could or would want to make this -routinely - take over twice as long as necessary?

So in my scenario, 103A pushed off from gate at 1652GMT, was behind schedule and perhaps given immediate clearance and let's just presume it was off the runway at 1700, or 5:00 GMT. 40 minutes to make the time to Heathrow. It's a tight fit, not so plausible it's obvious, not unlikely enough to rule out. Would adding an hour to flight time make it more or less realistic? I dunno. I call for calling this unresolved and checking other aspects. Can I get an amen?
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Old 21st November 2009, 12:49 AM   #212
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Quote:
Caustic Logic first noticed the apparent time-and-date. However, in his blog, he points out that "DATEI VON:881221" signifies data from 21st December 1988, not the date the printout was made. I think he's right about that,

So are we even right about the "1932" being the time the printout was made? I would have expected such a time, if recorded, to be accompanied by the date. But if the date beside it isn't the date the printout was made, then it isn't.
Obviously I decided date and time of printing first, then decided "file of" meant ... data for ... well, it's not contradictory anyway, it doesn't say it ISN'T 1221. I should consider that more carefully. What else would that time be? Data file close-and-save? Again, two hours late? Are retrieval time and day unknown? Hmmm... Is 1932 not even a time, just a file reference number for the file of 881221 that happens to resemble a time?

Quote:
flight times are always advertised as "local time",
Advertising is a "ground-based" function of the airline industry, to which GMT reference is not necessary.

Quote:
Next question. Where did the other two documents come from?

Three documents, neatly annotated to show how this mystery bag had come through to PA103A from KM180, were given to the Scottish police in August, by the BKA. One was the Erac printout, and we know how they're supposed to have got that. One was Koca's worksheet from station 206, with the ambiguous finish time on it that could have been 13.10 or 13.16. The third was Andreas Schreiner's interline writer's sheet (I'm assuming that's Coleman's "typewritten document"), "That bears to record one wagon of baggage from KM180, in position at 1248, arriving at V3 at 1301."

So, where did these latter two come from?
Yeah, that probably would be Schreiner's paper. They'd probably have a computer at V3 intake. It was probably on the central computer too and oonly didn't show up on ol' 1060 because THAT was all about stuff destined for 103, which only became known at the coding station. (I think, don't quote me). Might then be a printout rather than done on a typewriter.

Until I see reason to suspect them, I'd guess these papers originated with the FAG (airport authority), respective stations.

From what I gather of the system there, if the central data of what went where disappeared, all input-output paperwork would become about meaningless. They may have even not counted the bags at the plans, relying on coding station returns and the whole central data to extrapolate a rough number. If that's too stupid to be true, okay, it's just a thought I had. Anyway, with tons of stations saying they accepted bags, others saying they sent some one, and nothing between, such papers were probably just left there. Until the Erac printout surface, pointed to station 206 as the source of an item w/no passenger, THEN that paperwork suddenly means something and is taken into custody, presumably on Feb 2 1989.

More later...
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Old 21st November 2009, 02:49 AM   #213
GlennB
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post

...

Flight time: 42 minutes.

I actually didn't expect such a different time. I know this can't mean that's how long it would take, we have various courses possible, and "winter" may have had some effect (or not, depending on precise conditions) but it gives us an idea of what's plausible, and in fact I'm having a hard time seeing how from wheel up to wheels down they could or would want to make this -routinely - take over twice as long as necessary?
However, for a short flight such as this quite a high proportion of the journey is spent climbing and descending at relatively low speed. Then the flight paths out of Frankfurt and into Heathrow might swing around the cities, they'll certainly swing around the airport itself, planes might well be directed to 'holding stacks' while being scheduled for landing, and the main cruising flight corridor(s) are unlikely be one straight line from A to B.

Heathrow easterly arrivals map (2.4mb PDF download)

But published flight times are padded somewhat. This allows for delays at departure while still allowing the aircraft to arrive punctually. But taking off punctually and arriving an hour early? I've never seen that happen.
When all is said and done, an actual flight time of 47 minutes vs. a published time of 1:47 simply isn't right.

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Old 21st November 2009, 03:53 AM   #214
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by GlennB View Post
However, for a short flight such as this quite a high proportion of the journey is spent climbing and descending at relatively low speed. Then the flight paths out of Frankfurt and into Heathrow might swing around the cities, they'll certainly swing around the airport itself, planes might well be directed to 'holding stacks' while being scheduled for landing, and the main cruising flight corridor(s) are unlikely be one straight line from A to B.

Heathrow easterly arrivals map (2.4mb PDF download)

But published flight times are padded somewhat. This allows for delays at departure while still allowing the aircraft to arrive punctually. But taking off punctually and arriving an hour early? I've never seen that happen.
When all is said and done, an actual flight time of 47 minutes vs. a published time of 1:47 simply isn't right.
Thanks, dude! Good to have your input here again. These are the details that add, of course. Also, sometimes Frankfurt floats a little closer or further from London. Kidding, not even sarcasm just weird. I haven't flown much, and don't pay enough attention to say what percent - 120, 150, 200, 300% of ideal time is usually attained. All I've shown is that GMT times still are too close to plausible to toss aside just yet. Of course when considering these things, remember 570 still leaves a full 60mph roof above it before top speed, AND reportedly it was behind out of Frankfurt. Just to make the ideal 42 minites, as you say some parts it has to go slover, so it'd have to over 570 part of the time to maintain a 570 average. And it'd have to floor it for a longer time to beat that time to allow for a little circling and descent by 5:40.
Ideal ideal, top speed part way, 570-600 part, under that as little as possible, average 600mph, straight line, possible but unlikely: 40 minutes. Crap, not much different. Computer clock - off by prob 2-3 minutes, not sure if ahead or behind... struggling to maintain this position...

and I'm not sure why. It's all academic, especially if the printout was faked and all this is over what time it was made to appear printed, or saved, or...
Argh!

ETA: Awesome map! It shows actual tracks over time, pretty steady at a few small loops a couple miles wide. Unless they slow waaaaay down here, that can't add much.

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Old 21st November 2009, 05:26 AM   #215
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
ETA: Awesome map! It shows actual tracks over time, pretty steady at a few small loops a couple miles wide. Unless they slow waaaaay down here, that can't add much.
They do. This is anecdote as I don't know the actual speeds involved, but I used to work at Aldgate on the eastern fringes of The City of London. The East End, more or less. We smokers would nip out onto a high roof garden for a puff and, in a clear crisp winter's twilight, watch a whole train of aircraft lights circling in from the Thames estuary/Essex direction, then north over The City to continue over N London towards Heathrow. You could track an individual plane for several minutes. They're on their approach by then, and flying directly over a heavily populated area to boot.
A quick google suggests approach speeds in the 180-200 mph region and a touchdown speed a good chunk less than that.

I'll read back here somewhat on the printout story (I find the sheer volume of detail hard to handle - as do you all I'll bet) but having spent 20 years in I.T. as programmer, analyst, database designer and whatall I find it mysterious that such printouts could not be regenerated for a long time afterwards, as data archiving to tape prior to deletion is standard procedure. OK, this baggage loading system is probably not subject to sudden raids by auditors or irate customers chasing invoice queries, but bags do go missing, and I dare say performance might need analysing?

Meanwhile, the lazy gits at UEFA are not answering my email about kickoff times in those 2 football matches between AS Roma and Dynamo Dresden. The football forums aren't interested either But again, that's small detail.

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Old 21st November 2009, 09:20 AM   #216
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
So Dan O., How do you know so much? Would you agree then that a computer system like this would normally run in GMT time? I think Rolfe's made a good case why this is likely local - from what you know how plausible is that?
I just know that's how I've run mine (except when some middle manager can't understand the time difference and insists that it be changed). If they used local time, they would have uninterpretable results every fall when the time zone shifts back an hour.


The computer's clock on a VAX is usually accurate to within 1 or 2 seconds per day. There is however a deficiency in the timekeeping routine that causes the system to loose time when it is swamped by high priority interrupts. Correctable ECC memory errors could cause a VAX system clock to fall behind by a couple of minutes a day as could a poorly designed interrupt handler for custom hardware. Nothing but a poorly calibrated clock would cause the system to gain time.
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Old 21st November 2009, 09:42 AM   #217
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Originally Posted by Dan O. View Post
I just know that's how I've run mine (except when some middle manager can't understand the time difference and insists that it be changed). If they used local time, they would have uninterpretable results every fall when the time zone shifts back an hour.
I don't really understand this. Not at all, in fact.

I worked on DEC systems for years (PDP's and VAX's) in the UK. Twice a year the time would change. Some idiot would just go in there at a convenient time (in our case on a Sunday when the users were mostly 'dormant', they'd be warned and then killed if not ) and reboot with the correct current time. When we acquired remote access it could be done from home.

I've probably missed the point about 'time zones' here.
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Old 21st November 2009, 02:08 PM   #218
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I've never found it necessary to reboot a VAX to change the time. Although I did kill one in '99 by setting the date forward 1,000 years And there is a problem with the 16 bit hardware "TOY" clock that will forget what year it is if you don't reboot or set the time for over 18 months. But this has nothing to do with the problem they would have here.

The problem at Frankfurt is that if there were bags moving through the system during the hours before and after the time change and you see a printout that says the time was 0123, it could be standard time or daylight savings time and there is no way to tell which.
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Old 21st November 2009, 02:24 PM   #219
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Originally Posted by Dan O. View Post
The problem at Frankfurt is that if there were bags moving through the system during the hours before and after the time change and you see a printout that says the time was 0123, it could be standard time or daylight savings time and there is no way to tell which.
But this applies to any place that has a daylight saving system. What's special about Frankfurt, and what does it have to do with time zones? Frankfurt is in one time zone and will ever remain so.
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Old 21st November 2009, 04:05 PM   #220
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While I hear all that's being said, I'm really having difficulty seeing how the computer clock could be set to a different time zone from everybody else at Frankfurt, and nobody even mentioning this in Court. Here are three extracts that mention the time-keeping on the system.

Quote:
The baggage control system contained its own clock, and there was a tendency for the time recorded by that clock to diverge from real time. The baggage control clock was therefore reset at the start of each day, by reference either to the main computer clock or to the employee’s watch. The divergence was progressive and by 4.00pm or 5.00pm the discrepancy might be as much as two or three minutes. Times entered in other records were obtained by the staff from the airport clock or from their own watches.

In the first place, it was submitted that there was room for error because the computer time could diverge from real time and because the times entered by the operators could be inaccurate, either because the clock or watch relied on was inaccurate or because the entries were not correctly made.

We accept that the possibilities of error exist, but the computer clock was reset at the start of each day (although the precise time at which it was reset was not stated) and there was an interest in accurate time-keeping since one of the purposes of keeping records was to be able to trace baggage consignments through the system.

In particular, there is a mention of staff resetting the baggage control clock against their own watches. Surely, if any part of the system wasn't set to local time, this complication would have been referred to?

Then again, the latest times out of store for baggage on that list are 16.31 (the bags either side of the mystery item, as it happens). This correlates reasonably with the stated departure time of the flight, given as 16.53 in the Court judgement. I have flown a lot between London and Glasgow, a fairly similar distance to the London/Frankfurt hop, and frankly the idea that you could realistically cover that distance in 47 minutes doesn't seem sensible to me. Which has to imply that the times of all the Frankfurt part of the story are in local time, to allow a realistic flight time. I don't think BA are telling me right now that the flight takes between 1 hour 50 minutes and 1 hour 40 minutes if they can regularly do it in less than an hour.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Advertising is a "ground-based" function of the airline industry, to which GMT reference is not necessary.

And indeed, so is baggage handling. If the flights are all advertised as departing in local time, to have the baggage handling system an hour off from this seems quite counter-intuitive.

I'm not sure the daylight saving change would be such a problem. Most airports I've encountered don't run continuously for 24 hours - there usually seems to be a shut-down (at least of the passenger handling facilities) for about 3 or 4 hours in the middle of the night. I'd have imagined they'd deal with the clock-change during that time.

I simply think that if it was more complicated, and some of the clocks being referred to in court weren't on local time, someone would have mentioned it.

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Old 21st November 2009, 05:40 PM   #221
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I asked before but I'll ask again. Does anyone know what the extra letter codes appearing against 22 of the luggage items mean? The Mystery item has "TO" as do some of the others, while others have "BP".

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Old 21st November 2009, 05:48 PM   #222
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Could I also say again that this discussion is a bit futile? I seriously doubt that anyone at Frankfurt airport had had time to do more than say "What? Oh no, how dreadful" by 7.32pm GMT that night. If that. Even if the printout was really timed then, I think it would be a curiosity, no more.

However, I also doubt that "1932" is the time of the printout. There isn't an associated date of printout, which would seem essential. Also, that 4-number code appears rather isolated at the top. In the corresponding place at the bottom we see "193&SORT-ERF". I think it's at least as likely this is some sort of start codon or similar. Any thoughts, computer gurus?

I think we should be assuming we have no idea when the printout was actually made, and moving on to examine the much stranger strangeness surrounding this episode.

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Old 22nd November 2009, 12:35 AM   #223
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
Could I also say again that this discussion is a bit futile? <snip>
I think we should be assuming we have no idea when the printout was actually made, and moving on to examine the much stranger strangeness surrounding this episode.
Well I've seen more futile situations rescued before, but I'm for remaining unsure, leaving it a side-point to maybe return to later. I'd say we aren't sure what time, but not "no idea." I think we'll completely bury the thread tho continuing this nerdiness. I withdraw my previous jabber about knowing such and such, but not necc. conceding anything either.

Quote:
However, I also doubt that "1932" is the time of the printout. There isn't an associated date of printout, which would seem essential. Also, that 4-number code appears rather isolated at the top. In the corresponding place at the bottom we see "193&SORT-ERF". I think it's at least as likely this is some sort of start codon or similar. Any thoughts, computer gurus?
That is interesting, but as another time argument in parting, I'd rather drop, although with the correction that the bottom of the printout looks to me like 1936SORT-ERF. Another number just four higher? Four minute span from something to something? But again, this is getting tedious. We don't know when it was printed and it only matters so much.

Dan O., GlennB., you both seem to know at least something about this issue that might come in handy when we can tackle this decisively. But until then, as a time-of-printing issue, I'd rather move on. ETA: Not that ... whatever.

time zone, daylight savins, arrival and departure times, ideal air speed, the speed of phone message transmittal in 1988... all ignored in my evil vengeance on the issue that threatens my thread!

Contextual stuff:
Quote:
Does anyone know what the extra letter codes appearing against 22 of the luggage items mean? The Mystery item has "TO" as do some of the others, while others have "BP".
I noticed these, as of course 8849 has the extra TO next to store. I haven't looked into it could be deduced. What special sometimes factors might apply to a luggage store assignment, and what are some German words that abbreviate TO & BP? Or find an expert or direct source that just says? It's pretty nerdy, possibly a good clue we could determine. Or a total waste of time.

For me, "next!"
Originally Posted by GlennB View Post
I'll read back here somewhat on the printout story (I find the sheer volume of detail hard to handle - as do you all I'll bet) but having spent 20 years in I.T. as programmer, analyst, database designer and whatall I find it mysterious that such printouts could not be regenerated for a long time afterwards, as data archiving to tape prior to deletion is standard procedure. OK, this baggage loading system is probably not subject to sudden raids by auditors or irate customers chasing invoice queries, but bags do go missing, and I dare say performance might need analysing?
What the sources state is there was one week, or perhaps 8-day period where data was available, apparently in the system. I've heard tape mentioned only by Francovich, I think discs somewhere, but I'd guess large tapes. But no one speaks of phyiscal backups at all. Nor of any early deletion of the in-system data, or of police visits to the airport (from the site anyway, only from afar "someone's going there"). It's just passed off as no one bothered, and after the normal time, they deleted it, and then later Bogomira walks into the BKA with this paper. Sources are usually VAGUE on the whole issue.

So far everyone who's addressed this issue that I've seen is unanimous in agreeing that it's not right for records to vanish. There's no real proof they did, all we know is we've never heard about the computer records, aside from the printout, and that's not normal either. Official people will tell you it's just luck this record turned up, but they never elaborate on what that means, or why it was that way.

Ex, and I just love to re-quote this, Dick Marquise in his 2006 book: "her printout was the only record. This was as much a key to the solution of the case as Tony Gauci or the Mebo chip.” All things considered, it looks to me like Giaka was the master key that really lined them up. But he was proven a compulsive liar in court and his evidence (except Megrahi's JSO role) was tossed. As for the sub-keys (more tumblers within the lock maybe?) Tony Gauci changed his story more often than his underwear and got paid $2 million for it. The Mebo chip And this printout the "luck save" from an unexplained data disaster, from a locker, showing what looks kinda like an unaccompanied bag from Malta, which didn't really exist. Great company, they got a lock on this case alright.

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Old 22nd November 2009, 11:30 AM   #224
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Well I've seen more futile situations rescued before, but I'm for remaining unsure, leaving it a side-point to maybe return to later. I'd say we aren't sure what time, but not "no idea." I think we'll completely bury the thread tho continuing this nerdiness. I withdraw my previous jabber about knowing such and such, but not necc. conceding anything either.

I think you should fix, qualify or delete some of what you wrote on the wiki - we certainly don't know for sure that these times are GMT, and all the circumstantial evidence points to them not being GMT.

Also, I'm not even certain Frankfurt would have known what had happened less than half an hour after the explosion. ATC, possibly, but baggage control? So even if that was the time of the printout, I'm not sure it's significant in the way you originally indicated.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
That is interesting, but as another time argument in parting, I'd rather drop, although with the correction that the bottom of the printout looks to me like 1936SORT-ERF. Another number just four higher? Four minute span from something to something? But again, this is getting tedious. We don't know when it was printed and it only matters so much.

You're right. It's clearly 1936SORT-ERF when you look at the clearer file on Bollier's server. That brings me back to thinking it's the time of the printout again. Time to start at the beginning, time to finish at the end. If that's realistic, for 111 lines of data plus a line or two of header and footer. Comes to around 2 seconds per line, give or take a few seconds.

We don't have a definite date of the printout, but if that's the case it absolutely doesn't fit with the Court record that says Bogomira made the printout "on the following morning". Half past seven in the evening suggests a routine end-of-day record, rather than someone deliberately preserving evidence.

The only date on the printout is 21st December, and it appears twice. That could simply be the date of the flight appearing twice, but on balance I see no indication that this is anything but a routine printout taken in the evening of the day of departure. In my view, half an hour before the explosion, but even if it was half an hour afterwards I still feel that's too early to be likely to be a response to it.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Dan O., GlennB., you both seem to know at least something about this issue that might come in handy when we can tackle this decisively. But until then, as a time-of-printing issue, I'd rather move on. ETA: Not that ... whatever.

time zone, daylight savins, arrival and departure times, ideal air speed, the speed of phone message transmittal in 1988... all ignored in my evil vengeance on the issue that threatens my thread!

OK, OK, I agree it's a minor point, but I think it's siginificant in that it shows evidence that Bogomira's story as presented to the Court wasn't strictly accurate. You who have access to what she actually said, did she claim in so many words she made the printout the morning afterwards?

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Contextual stuff:

I noticed these, as of course 8849 has the extra TO next to store. I haven't looked into it could be deduced. What special sometimes factors might apply to a luggage store assignment, and what are some German words that abbreviate TO & BP? Or find an expert or direct source that just says? It's pretty nerdy, possibly a good clue we could determine. Or a total waste of time.

I suspect it's unimportant or someone would have brought to point up, but I'd still like to know.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
What the sources state is there was one week, or perhaps 8-day period where data was available, apparently in the system. I've heard tape mentioned only by Francovich, I think discs somewhere, but I'd guess large tapes. But no one speaks of phyiscal backups at all. Nor of any early deletion of the in-system data, or of police visits to the airport (from the site anyway, only from afar "someone's going there"). It's just passed off as no one bothered, and after the normal time, they deleted it, and then later Bogomira walks into the BKA with this paper. Sources are usually VAGUE on the whole issue.

So far everyone who's addressed this issue that I've seen is unanimous in agreeing that it's not right for records to vanish. There's no real proof they did, all we know is we've never heard about the computer records, aside from the printout, and that's not normal either. Official people will tell you it's just luck this record turned up, but they never elaborate on what that means, or why it was that way.

Ex, and I just love to re-quote this, Dick Marquise in his 2006 book: "her printout was the only record. This was as much a key to the solution of the case as Tony Gauci or the Mebo chip.” All things considered, it looks to me like Giaka was the master key that really lined them up. But he was proven a compulsive liar in court and his evidence (except Megrahi's JSO role) was tossed. As for the sub-keys (more tumblers within the lock maybe?) Tony Gauci changed his story more often than his underwear and got paid $2 million for it. The Mebo chip And this printout the "luck save" from an unexplained data disaster, from a locker, showing what looks kinda like an unaccompanied bag from Malta, which didn't really exist. Great company, they got a lock on this case alright.

What about the press report stating that the BKA had visited Frankfurt airport "last week", which should have been only three days after the crash? Do you think they didn't go? I think what's so telling about the report is that it shows that even just a week after the crash, the importance of Frankfurt and examining the Frankfurt part of the story (which would almost all be baggage records) was recognised. And yet they still failed to secure the records?

What about the comment from the designer of the computer system who said there should have been backup tapes, to assist in tracing any lost luggage. Considering that 40-something bags loaded at Frankfurt ended up scattered across the Dumfriesshire countryside, common sense says such a backup should not have been chucked, even if there was no suspicion that any of the bags had had a hand in the explosion.

And we know the BKS did get some hard-copy records without Bogomira's help. The hand-written worksheets and the interline writers' documents. (Somehow, though, they didn't get the tarmac records of either the unloading of KM180 or the loading of PA 103A.) They had these documents, which allowed them to make sense of Bogomira's printout.

You speculated they secured them after Bogomira came forward with her printout, but I'm doubtful about that. Jones said that when he visited on 23rd January he found nothing. Would that not suggest that these documents were missing by then? Which was almost certainly before the police started to follow up Bogomira's evidence.

My interpretation was that the BKA did visit soon after the crash, and took these documents away, and for whatever reason no copies were kept (although Jones said they should have been if the police had seized them). So we're supposed to believe that these relatively unimportant pieces of paper were preserved for a few days, so that the police got hold of them, but that the important records (and in that I include the tarmac un/loading records as well as the computer data) had already been discarded? Even though a recent air crash might have suggested at the very least that records might be needed to see if bags reported missing had been on that plane?

This is extremely weird.

Rolfe.
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Old 22nd November 2009, 04:32 PM   #225
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
I think you should fix, qualify or delete some of what you wrote on the wiki - we certainly don't know for sure that these times are GMT, and all the circumstantial evidence points to them not being GMT.
Thanks. Yeah, I'll check the damage and fix it later today.

Quote:
We don't have a definite date of the printout, but if that's the case it absolutely doesn't fit with the Court record that says Bogomira made the printout "on the following morning". Half past seven in the evening suggests a routine end-of-day record, rather than someone deliberately preserving evidence.
Actually looks like she was working evening shifts, and printed it up the following night. Details forthcoming. Some troubling.

Quote:
The only date on the printout is 21st December, and it appears twice. That could simply be the date of the flight appearing twice, but on balance I see no indication that this is anything but a routine printout taken in the evening of the day of departure. In my view, half an hour before the explosion, but even if it was half an hour afterwards I still feel that's too early to be likely to be a response to it.
Could go either way. If they waited 1 1/2 hours, why not 2 1/2?

Quote:
OK, OK, I agree it's a minor point, but I think it's siginificant in that it shows evidence that Bogomira's story as presented to the Court wasn't strictly accurate. You who have access to what she actually said, did she claim in so many words she made the printout the morning afterwards?
Ah hah, you were already guessing. I'm formatting the rather short (on details we desire) testimony. Later...

Quote:
What about the press report stating that the BKA had visited Frankfurt airport "last week", which should have been only three days after the crash? Do you think they didn't go?
That's the one I meant by distance report. It seems they probably did go but we have no reports like "we went and found..."

Quote:
I think what's so telling about the report is that it shows that even just a week after the crash, the importance of Frankfurt and examining the Frankfurt part of the story (which would almost all be baggage records) was recognised. And yet they still failed to secure the records?
I think you're likely right that they did secure the records. They just went real quiet afterwards.

Quote:
What about the comment from the designer of the computer system who said there should have been backup tapes, to assist in tracing any lost luggage. Considering that 40-something bags loaded at Frankfurt ended up scattered across the Dumfriesshire countryside, common sense says such a backup should not have been chucked, even if there was no suspicion that any of the bags had had a hand in the explosion.
Agreed. They should have made at least one copy of the data. But hey, uh... well...

Quote:
You speculated they secured them after Bogomira came forward with her printout, but I'm doubtful about that. Jones said that when he visited on 23rd January he found nothing. Would that not suggest that these documents were missing by then? Which was almost certainly before the police started to follow up Bogomira's evidence.
FAG and PanAm kept their own records. PA for PA flights, FAG for all others. Jones was looking at PanAm's files, which weren't there. FAG's I've seen no evidence of missing records except the unloading for KM180 which may have just never had a paper record. Or as you surmise the BKA took all relevant records and did the comparison at a remote location. Or the FAG did this all on their site to decide which records were relevant and then took copies only. I just don't know really. What do you think of the idea that outer records (tarmac) would lose meaning without the central data? (this only matters to BKA if it was deleted already when they got there).

This s of course plenty weird.
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Old 23rd November 2009, 01:52 AM   #226
Caustic Logic
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Sorry, the above was typed in haste earlier today. In short, it does seem KM180's records were missing, or at least Phipps found their absence unsettling. And this could mean such records were removed, meaning both Pan Am and FAG (paper) records went missing. Like the main computer data, and 103A's loading papers, any detailed record of KM180's unloading (ie no. of bags) that ever existed was not mentioned by the Court, indicating permanent erasure. The closes we get is this:

Production 1068: The court’s point [29] denotes this for “the evidence of Joachim Koscha, who was one of the managers of the baggage system at Frankfurt in 1988” It was his evidence that established KM180’s arrival and unloading time, 12:48-13:00. They do also cite a “record,” but provided no direct citation. It almost seems they’re just citing his memory, when normally paper records were kept.

Another question - would the BKA have authority or ability to remove PanAm files without leaving copies? Or would PanAm or American authorities have done that?

And the first posting of her full testimony I decided it would be best to post it at my blog. I'm curious what you make of it, Rolfe. I haven't absorbed it all yet myself.
http://12-7-9-11.blogspot.com/2009/1...mira-erac.html
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Old 23rd November 2009, 03:09 AM   #227
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First, I note that Bogomira says she first heard about the crash when she was in her car driving away from the airport. Her shift finished at 10pm, but she might have left about 9.45 if all the work was finished. This indicates that news of what had happened wasn't all over the airport half an hour after it happened - I didn't really think it would have been. The news trickled out over the following few hours, and it sounds to me as if she heard it on a radio news broadcast at about 10pm - which would be 9pm GMT. I don't see any reason to doubt this.

However, the next bit is interesting. That news broadcast said the plane came from Frankfurt. No mention that it had actually come from Heathrow and that the Frankfurt flight had only been a feeder flight. Even when she printed out the baggage records, she still thought she was dealing with a direct Frankfurt to New York flight, and couldn't understand why there was so little luggage. (In fact it was a relatively small plane, with only 128 passengers, and only 49 of them were going on to New York - the other 79 got off in London. Hence the relatively small baggage load.)

This makes it clear that the Frankfurt connection was highlighted from the very beginning. This wasn't, as I had speculated, a question of everybody concentrating on Heathrow until baggage container AVE4041 was found with blast damage (first bit brought in 24th December), which led to the realisation that the bags in that had almost all come off PA103A from Frankfurt. If that had been the case, that prior to the finding of the damaged container Frankfurt was just one of a number of airports that had feeder flights for this flight, it might have been conceivable that nobody really got interested in that airport until the week after the crash. At which point the records might have vanished innocently. (Ok, I don't believe it, because there would be bound to be queries about lost bags relating to that flight, but it's possible.)

However, German radio news telling everyone on the evening of 21st December that the flight had originated in Frankfurt? And we're supposed to believe that the BKA didn't go near the airport for more than a week after the crash, by which time nobody (apart from Bogomira) had thought about it at all, and all the information had been routinely destroyed?

Oh, come on!

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Old 23rd November 2009, 03:49 AM   #228
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And thirdly, she says she made the printout "quite late on", on the 22nd. She was on late shift again - probably started work after lunch. That would fit with a printout time starting 19:32 and finishing 19:36. We don't have a date of the 22nd on the printout, but it's perfectly possible that it was made on the 22nd. The judges merely made a mistake in their final judgement when they said it had been printed the following morning.

So Bogomira's statement to the Court is consistent with the evidence she produced. It's perfectly possible she's on the level, though it's interesting to compare that statement with her later one to the BBC, which seems to describe a routine printout she decided to preserve.

I still view this tale with a suspicious eye, but it may be the main interest is in the illumination it sheds on the disappearance of the records.

So, Bogomira didn't go on holiday on Christmas Eve, as I had thought likely. (The crash happened on a Wednesday, she made the printout on the evening of Thursday 22nd, and I would have expected a lot of people to be disappearing immediately after work on Friday 23rd. I did that myself, struggling up the half-closed A74, past the crater that was Sherwood Crescent.) But Bogomira said, "a few days later, I went to Slovenia for the New Year." She doesn't say she worked over Christmas, but it begins to sound as if she did. She certainly doesn't speak of going off on 23rd December.

So she was around in the few days following the crash. She describes nothing about any attempts to preserve the records at that stage, and nothing about any police enquiries. In spite of the fact the Frankfurt connection had been made immediately the plane went down, and news reports dated 27th December are telling us that the BKA visited the ariport "last week".



She returned on 14th or 15th January. Actually, 14th was a Saturday and 15th was a Sunday. Since airports work 7 days a week that could be irrelevant, but it made me wonder if she might actually have started again on the 16th. But whichever, this is all consistent with a two-week New Year holiday. It's a nice break, but it's nothing out of the ordinary in Europe. Remember, Americans get by far the shortest holiday periods of all the First World countries, don't judge the holiday by these standards.

But then she waited another week, to some time between 20th and 25th January, before she told anyone. 20th was a Friday and 25th was a Wednesday. Jones visited Frankfurt airport on Monday 23rd January and found all the records gone.

How many people did Jones talk to? What was he told about the fate of the records, and the reason nothing was available? Did he talk to Bogomira, or (more likely) did she hear that he'd been there asking questions? Was this what prompted her to come forward with the printout? I don't know but I wonder.

We know the BKA had some documents - the worksheets and the interline writers' documents. When did they get these? Why were no copies retained in the airport?

Why are we hearing absolutely nothing about the first BKA visit to the airport, which should have happened before Christmas unless they were completely asleep at the wheel, and the huge fuss and recriminations that ensued when they found the most vital records had already been destroyed?

Rolfe.
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Old 23rd November 2009, 04:28 AM   #229
Caustic Logic
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Glad you had a chance to take a look so soon.

Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
First, I note that Bogomira says she first heard about the crash when she was in her car driving away from the airport. Her shift finished at 10pm, but she might have left about 9.45 if all the work was finished. This indicates that news of what had happened wasn't all over the airport half an hour after it happened - I didn't really think it would have been. The news trickled out over the following few hours, and it sounds to me as if she heard it on a radio news broadcast at about 10pm - which would be 9pm GMT. I don't see any reason to doubt this.
While I can see quick news coming through, depending, it's true there's no reason except the time (and date) on the paper to suspect it was printed that night. Her story then makes sense here in that she'd be back the next afternoon/evening until about 10pm. After watching the evening news (6:00?) she later (at 7:32) pulled up and printed this file. It's still possible that it was then replicated later to match this, or that the paper and story were both fabricated to fit each other. All it really says is what's on the paper that, again, is the odd souvenir in the far more odd general data disaster.

I'm looking at it again in this light. It is strange this would show a time and not date of printing, but it seems so. There might be something else there I'm not getting. But this testimony makes a little more sense than I expected. It's her 2008 story changing that's more troubling then.

Quote:
However, the next bit is interesting. That news broadcast said the plane came from Frankfurt. No mention that it had actually come from Heathrow and that the Frankfurt flight had only been a feeder flight. Even when she printed out the baggage records, she still thought she was dealing with a direct Frankfurt to New York flight, and couldn't understand why there was so little luggage. (In fact it was a relatively small plane, with only 128 passengers, and only 49 of them were going on to New York - the other 79 got off in London. Hence the relatively small baggage load.)
This could be German bias, in that people are more interested in what's close to them, therefore 103 started at Frankfurt. Which it of course did, in a major sense. Of course investigators in Scotland had a better picture than newscasters in Germany. But clearly people knew Frankfurt was one of two main points to look at from the beginning.

Quote:
German radio news telling everyone on the evening of 21st December that the flight had originated in Frankfurt? And we're supposed to believe that the BKA didn't go near the airport for more than a week after the crash, by which time nobody (apart from Bogomira) had thought about it at all, and all the information had been routinely destroyed?

Oh, come on!

Rolfe.
Especialy given German federal police reported as investigating at Frankfurt "last week" as reported Tuesday Dec 27, so no later than Saturday the 24th, AVE4041 news or not. This is as it should be, but then they came back really quiet and that's odd.

Some extracts:
Quote:
Q All right. So once you had finished looking at the computer printout, did you give it to anyone?
A No. No. I didn't see anything problematic.
Q What did you do with the computer printout, then?
A No one instructed me to make this computer printout. I just did it for myself because I was curious about the way in which the flight had been dispatched, so I took a look at it, and then I kept it as a souvenir, one might say. I hung it up in my cupboard.
We could ask as we have how she could know what was or wasn't problematic. But if all were well as far as she knew, investigators should already have this info for a flight that blew up after sort-of originating there. Therefore she'd not be at fault for putting her own, extraneous, irrelevant copy away as a souvenir.

But why is she also citing "nothing problematic" as the reason she didn't give it to anyone? (Cupboard is probably a translation issue, as she's being translated here as well).

Quote:
Q Do you recollect when you returned to Frankfurt?
A I think it would have been around about the 15th of January, perhaps one day before that.
Q Did there come a stage when you told Mr. Berg that you had the printout?
A That was around a week later. When I went to Frankfurt again, I was on the early shift. It was sometime between the 20th and the 25th of January.
That confirms my hunch that "three weeks" was rounding down. It was a full month delay.

On record-keeping and data backup:
Quote:
Q Thank you. Did you give the printout to Mr. Berg at that time?
A Yes, I gave Mr. Berg this printout, because I'd realised that there was actually no other documentation available.
Q Did he ask you to check the computer at that stage to see if there was any more information available?
A In the computer -- well, there was -- the data was there for one week, and after that they were written over. Mr. Berg just asked me to take a look in the archive in order to see whether there were teletype printouts. These were the things which came automatically from the computer. But I couldn't find anything.
Q Would there be any record of the baggage sent to flight 103 if you hadn't made this printout?
A Not so far as I know.
Q Thank you.
Before this:
Quote:
Q And for how long would that information be kept in the computer?
A The information was kept in the computer for a few days; however, for various appraisal processes, we copied the data onto two boards. We switched between one and the other.
and later
Quote:
I believe it was a KIK computer where the data were stored. They were stored in that computer for a few days, and it would be possible then to copy the data onto disks.
Otherwise the testimony mostly covers computer time issues - its irregular clock pulse and the vagaries of daily time-settings. Both can and surely did introduce imprecision into the times recorded, but we don't even know which direction, ahead or behind, is most likely, so it's just a question mark.

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Old 23rd November 2009, 05:21 AM   #230
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That's all to do with whether 13:07 on that printout actually matches with the handwritten 13:01 to 13:10 (or 13:16) which was the time-span of the coding of the KM 180 luggage.

So, what? The coder wasn't called to give evidence. Maybe he wouldn't have been able to swear that luggage from other sources couldn't have come through at the same time. That Damascus flight, maybe, or a stray bag being sent into the system. I simply can't see how 13:07 proves beyond reasonable doubt that whatever it was came off KM180, even if all the times are accurate.

I'm toying with two scenarios here, both involving shenanigans on the part of the BKA. (For God's sake, why has nobody asked the BKA why they didn't manage to secure that data? That's the most baffling thing about all this!)

I reckon they came in a few days after the crash, possibly over the Christmas weekend, and left scorched earth behind them. All the records, all the backups, and no copies left. And if you want to know how this might have been possible, go read Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome. A little hint of it shows in Bogomira's evidence.

Quote:
Q What did you do with the computer printout, then?
A No one instructed me to make this computer printout.

What I was unsure about was whether the entire Bogomira printout thing was a retrospective fabrication to allow the introduction of selective evidence the BKA by their own account of events hadn't actually secured, or whether she was a damn nuisance, having preserved something they were trying to suppress. Her evidence does add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. Maybe she did do exactly as she describes.

So, what do we make of the orphan luggage, then? It seems to say it came off KM180, but Air Malta's records show it did no such thing. Is it pure coincidence, which turned out to be so useful seven months later when there was a concerted effort to involve somewhere that wasn't Frankfurt in this mess? I'm really suspicious of the number of coincidences surrounding this affair.

Or is it possible that the printout was a fabrication, with Bogomira's data re-typed with an extra line added?

I thought I heard somewhere that Bogomira had kept her own copy as well, but I'm not sure about that. Most of the accounts suggest she didn't. (I'd have photocopied it, but that's just me.) If she didn't, then it's unlikely she would have noticed an extra line in there - particularly if an innocent line was omitted to keep the total number of bags the same.

So, three suggestions I suppose.
  • The BKA removed all the evidence, then about six months later they doctored the data from the flight to include the orphan item. They then managed to persuade one of the computer operators at Frankfurt, a woman immigrant from Eastern Europe who had managed to get across the Iron Curtain 20 years earlier, to testify to a cock-and-bull story about how she saved the data. This was so sensitive that the computer operator insisted on giving evidence anonymously at the 1990 enquiries. This allowed them to produce that single item, and continue to conceal the data from other flights that might have allowed its provenance to be questioned.
  • The BKA removed all the evidence, then about a month later an airport employee produced a printout of part of what they were trying to conceal. They sat on this for six months, but found its existence useful when they wanted to fabricate evidence to implicate Malta in the incident - allowing them to introduce a link to Malta into the data, then have it sworn to by the innocent Mrs. Erac, who of course didn't remember the printout in sufficient detail to notice the interpolated item.
  • The BKA removed all the evidence, then about a month later an airport employee produced a printout of part of what they were trying to conceal. The entry suggestive of a link to Malta was there, but they sat on it for another seven months, fill in any one of several motives here.
And then there's number 4.
  • The important evidence had all been destroyed before the BKA got there only a few days after the crash, but they seized what was left (with no copies retained). They didn't raise a huge stink about the loss of the vital evidence. About a month later an airport employee produced a printout of the most vital piece of evidence they thought was lost, and it was possible to determine that it included the record of a suspicious item of baggage. They sat on it for six months without a word to anyone.
That last is the Official Version, of course. Which one is the most probable?

As regards motives for the delay, I can think of a few. First, they wanted to keep all the glory for themselves and not involve a foreign force. (That's what the Scottish police did with the timer fragment, after all.) However, given that it would have been the work of a few days to cross-reference the documents they had, why not come triumphantly out of the woodwork as soon as that's been done? You don't get any glory by finding and characterising and documenting a vital piece of evidence if you never come forward with it!

Second, they saw what they had, and that Malta could be implicated, but they wanted to give it a few months in the hope that any records Malta might have to show the bomb couldn't have gone on at their end might have gone to the great skip in the sky.

Third, none of this even got looked at until about July, when efforts to find an alternative story to take the heat off Frankfurt, drug smuggling and the CIA began. Wonderful luck about the item fitting in with the time of the coding of KM180! Or maybe you make your own luck.

Rolfe.
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Old 23rd November 2009, 06:42 AM   #231
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Sorry to digress slightly from the 'printout' and the current issues around Mrs Erac's story, but here is an interesting article I stumbled upon taken from Newsday, 03/04/89. As it transpires, there may be a slender, however, important link back to the Erac printout.

Originally Posted by Newsday
A breakthrough in the investigation - and Scottish police believe they are on the verge of one - could produce yet another crisis between the United States and Iran.
So, everyone is still hot on the trail of the Jibril group with Iran issuing the contract and paying for the attack. Suggesting strong evidence, links and motive are at hand. This is March/April '89.

Originally Posted by Newsday
During a sweep coordinated with American and other intelligence agencies, the West Germans arrested in Neuss, near Dusseldorf, were Haj Hafsim Dalkamoni and Fattah Ghondafar. Dalkamoni was described as a paymaster for Jibril's group.......
.....car parked near their flat in Neuss, police found a radio-cassette player containing 11 ounces of plastic explosive called Semtex, with a fuse that could be triggered by changes in barometric pressure...
Now, as far as we know, there was no records available at Frankfurt. Yes, the ties are there in Germany, but by the 23rd January according to Michael Jones, records were unavailable. It is not referred to, or mentioned in any of the quotes taken, that there is a lack of records or documentation pertaining to Frankfurt and 103A. After, they've decided to ignore Bedfords suitcases, and they've shelved the break-in at the PanAm gate, do the UK investigators have access to some form of documenation that shows the unaccompanied bomb-bag was inserted at Frankfurt?

Originally Posted by Newsday
In the next few weeks, British police believe they will pinpoint the passenger who boarded a Pan Am flight in Frankfurt early Dec. 21 and checked a bag - later transferred to Pan Am Flight 103 in Heathrow - containing a radio-cassette player that held Semtex plastic explosive.
Well, it seems they must do! Or is this just simply a tactic employed to apply pressure to the authorities and investigators at Frankfurt? Is this one big game of pass the buck? Do we have those at Heathrow with knowledge that the Frankfurt records have mysteriously vanished, and Frankfurt with knowledge that Bedrfords story and the break-in at Heathrow are being somewhat suppressed?

Originally Posted by Newsday
Despite optimism among British investigators, there is widespread doubt their investigation will produce a real breakthrough. West German officials have expressed strong doubts about a central British tenet - that the bag containing the bomb originated in Frankfurt. According to one official involved in the Frankfurt airport investigation, the luggage that wound up at Heathrow was subjected to a pressure box screening at Frankfurt.

The device simulates a plane at high altitudes and thus would trigger the bomb if it were like the PFLP-GC bomb recovered near Dusseldorf.

"Why didn't the bomb explode on the Frankfurt-to-London leg of the flight?" said the Frankfurt government official. At Heathrow, the luggage was transferred by hand and sat unattended before being loaded into the 747's igloo, he said.
We have a stalemate with ulterior agenda's at play here. Added to this we have the Khreesat's devices, his arrest and subsequent release. Not only is there a dirty ongoing game of pass-the-buck back and forward, while each holding their own records and documentation close to their chests. If only we could get everyone hunting for a completely different device being used, and all these airport problems stemming from elsewhere.

Full Newsday article - http://plane-truth.com/Aoude/geocities/newsday8.html

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Old 23rd November 2009, 07:12 AM   #232
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Originally Posted by Buncrana View Post
taken from Newsday, 03/04/89.

Can you state whether you mean 3rd April 1989 or 4th March 1989? I think we need to use the names of the months to avoid confusion here.

Rolfe.
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Old 23rd November 2009, 07:41 AM   #233
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Originally Posted by Buncrana View Post
Now, as far as we know, there was no records available at Frankfurt. Yes, the ties are there in Germany, but by the 23rd January according to Michael Jones, records were unavailable. It is not referred to, or mentioned in any of the quotes taken, that there is a lack of records or documentation pertaining to Frankfurt and 103A. After, they've decided to ignore Bedfords suitcases, and they've shelved the break-in at the PanAm gate, do the UK investigators have access to some form of documenation that shows the unaccompanied bomb-bag was inserted at Frankfurt?

Well, it seems they must do! Or is this just simply a tactic employed to apply pressure to the authorities and investigators at Frankfurt? Is this one big game of pass the buck? Do we have those at Heathrow with knowledge that the Frankfurt records have mysteriously vanished, and Frankfurt with knowledge that Bedrfords story and the break-in at Heathrow are being somewhat suppressed?

I think a lot of this is related to baggage container AVE4041. The explosion hapened inside that, and they soon found out that it had contained a few interline bags loaded from earlier flights arriving at Heathrow, but mostly bags rushed into the container from PA103A which had arrived late.

I think that was the reason for the very early announcement that the device almost certainly did not originate at Heathrow, and the abandonment (to the obvious huge relief of all the Brits involved) of any serious enquiries at Heathrow.

What I find so surprising is that even on the day of the crash, the Frankfurt connection was being reported, and we know that the computer records were supposed to stay around for several days at least. And yet we have no explanation of the failure of the investigators to secure these records before they were deleted.

This bit of the Erac testimony is also weird.

Quote:
Q Did he ask you to check the computer at that stage to see if there was any more information available?
A In the computer -- well, there was -- the data was there for one week, and after that they were written over. Mr. Berg just asked me to take a look in the archive in order to see whether there were teletype printouts. These were the things which came automatically from the computer. But I couldn't find anything.

So there were automatic teletype printouts (something different from Bogomira's KIK printout, apparently), which were looked for on about 20th to 25th January, but nothing had been kept. Does this not seem remarkably casual?

Four days after the crash was Christmas Day. In my experience, there aren't many flights on that day and airports run a skeleton staff. Now if I were the police, who really wanted the evidence out of there, I might just choose that day to remove it.

Why am I assuming the BKA? Because they did secure some evidence, we know, so they were there at some point collecting stuff. And if they found that most of what they needed had vanished in a puff of electrons, why didn't they make a much bigger deal about this?

Rolfe.
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Old 23rd November 2009, 02:14 PM   #234
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Newsday
West German officials have expressed strong doubts about a central British tenet - that the bag containing the bomb originated in Frankfurt. According to one official involved in the Frankfurt airport investigation, the luggage that wound up at Heathrow was subjected to a pressure box screening at Frankfurt.

The device simulates a plane at high altitudes and thus would trigger the bomb if it were like the PFLP-GC bomb recovered near Dusseldorf.
Pressure box? Never heard of that before, and it sounds made-up. Not to say there isn't such a thing, but it just sounds more like "quit looking here!" But they had to look elsewhere than Heathrow, as the break-in was known to investigators (just not the public or the defense until it was too late). So the solution seems to have been to look towards, and then right through Frankfurt. More directly tho it says "quit looking for an altimeter, at least here. If you must look here, it'll be a timer." It would be a month or two before Brits started toward deciding the same thing (ala Hayes and PT/35(b)).

Also:
Quote:
"Why didn't the bomb explode on the Frankfurt-to-London leg of the flight?" said the Frankfurt government official.
Uh, because of the pressure box screening before that? Did you forget your made-up story dummy?

So this is a little off-topic, but tangentially related anyway. Buncrana, you've been great with the old backstories. Would you be interested in regitering at the skeptic's wiki to add some of these tidbits or just whatever else? We've got a hundred million pages need started...
http://www.skepticweb.dreamhosters.com/Main_Page
Anyone else, too.

Originally Posted by Rolfe
Can you state whether you mean 3rd April 1989 or 4th March 1989? I think we need to use the names of the months to avoid confusion here.
It's not clear from the page. Being American tho, I thinks it's that Newsday, I'd guess March 4, or 4 March. But it's a guess.

Originally Posted by Rolfe
Why am I assuming the BKA? Because they did secure some evidence, we know, so they were there at some point collecting stuff. And if they found that most of what they needed had vanished in a puff of electrons, why didn't they make a much bigger deal about this?
Well to be fair, I think no matter what unusual happened, they'd have to keep quiet about it. The only noise they'd be expected to or accepted to make is about following procedures and getting the evidence. No such noise indicates either an embarrassing early disappearance before a BKA visit or, more likely, the same at BKA's hands.

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Old 23rd November 2009, 03:23 PM   #235
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Pressure box? Never heard of that before, and it sounds made-up. Not to say there isn't such a thing, but it just sounds more like "quit looking here!" But they had to look elsewhere than Heathrow, as the break-in was known to investigators (just not the public or the defense until it was too late). So the solution seems to have been to look towards, and then right through Frankfurt. More directly tho it says "quit looking for an altimeter, at least here. If you must look here, it'll be a timer." It would be a month or two before Brits started toward deciding the same thing (ala Hayes and PT/35(b)).

As this has never been mentioned by anyone involved in the inquiry, I think the "official" in that source was mistaken.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Uh, because of the pressure box screening before that? Did you forget your made-up story dummy?

Well, there's a problem with this idea anway. The Khreesat bombs had both an altimeter and a timer. There was a half-hour delay after reaching the trigger pressure before the bomb went off. Did they hold the luggage in the pressure box for over half an hour? No I didn't think so.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
So this is a little off-topic, but tangentially related anyway. Buncrana, you've been great with the old backstories. Would you be interested in regitering at the skeptic's wiki to add some of these tidbits or just whatever else? We've got a hundred million pages need started...
http://www.skepticweb.dreamhosters.com/Main_Page
Anyone else, too.

Anything that will encourage more Buncrana posts, is a Good Thing.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Well to be fair, I think no matter what unusual happened, they'd have to keep quiet about it. The only noise they'd be expected to or accepted to make is about following procedures and getting the evidence. No such noise indicates either an embarrassing early disappearance before a BKA visit or, more likely, the same at BKA's hands.

You ever met a police force who showed up promptly to find someone had already destroyed the evidence, and kept quiet about it?

I find it extremely difficult to see how that vanishing evidence at Frankfurt was accidental. I think it either has to be airport insiders who didn't want the drug-running operation exposed, in which case the police really have to have been complicit in the concealment, or it was the police who were the prime movers.

The reason I suspect the latter is that some of the evidence was indeed preserved, to be produced by the police months later. If it had been a management scorched-earth, I'd have expected the worksheets and so on to have gone the same way as the computer records.

Rolfe.
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Old 23rd November 2009, 04:54 PM   #236
Ambrosia
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Blegh - bogged down with work still so can't spend anything like as much time as I'd like on this.

re the 19:32 time being before the plane exploded. Maybe time of generation of list rather than time of retrieval? maybe the system clock on such systems runs to a standard time zone for software reasons?

I didn't realise the baggage handler had two different versions - I've been going with the one she states on the Conspiracy Files video.

Pan Am ultimately went bankrupt over 103 - I can't help thinking that the investigation surrounding the point of ingestion of the bomb was a giant game of pass the buck with UK German and US interests all wanting to make dam sure none of them got sued by many angry relatives further down the line.
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Old 23rd November 2009, 05:19 PM   #237
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Ambrosia View Post
Blegh - bogged down with work still so can't spend anything like as much time as I'd like on this.
Nor as much time as I'd like.

Quote:
I didn't realise the baggage handler had two different versions - I've been going with the one she states on the Conspiracy Files video.
Ah, well that's a big point. The earlier version she told the court has a certain correlation with the paper itself, seeing its date is unclear and its time matched with an evening shift. So it's her later story that doesn't fit with the rest at all. Age-induced memory problems? Non-real story-generated memory problems?

Quote:
Pan Am ultimately went bankrupt over 103 - I can't help thinking that the investigation surrounding the point of ingestion of the bomb was a giant game of pass the buck with UK German and US interests all wanting to make dam sure none of them got sued by many angry relatives further down the line.
This would indeed seem part of the picture. PanAm of course got the full buck passed to them in the end and sank. Oddly, their bankruptcy was finalized just after the indictments against al Megrahi and Fhimah were issued, so by what exact mechanism I don't know but their fate seemed tied, in a negative way, with the case that unfolded, almost as if it were a case against them.
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Old 23rd November 2009, 05:28 PM   #238
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Originally Posted by Ambrosia View Post
re the 19:32 time being before the plane exploded. Maybe time of generation of list rather than time of retrieval? maybe the system clock on such systems runs to a standard time zone for software reasons?

The 19.32 seems to fit OK with what Bogomira told the court, that she printed it out later on in the day following the crash. I don't think it's possible for the clock to be anything other than local time because (a) there are several references to its time being compared to people's watches, with no suggestion of a time zone discrepancy, and (b) the time of the last bags out of store fits with the known time of take-off of the plane in local time.

Given that the time at the start of the printout is 19.32 and the time at the end is 19.36, I think it's time of actual physical printing, as about 4 minutes to generate that list seems fairly realistic, at about 2 seconds a line.

Originally Posted by Ambrosia View Post
I didn't realise the baggage handler had two different versions - I've been going with the one she states on the Conspiracy Files video.

I just did a transcript of that segment, for comparison withwhat Caustic Logic has acquired.

Quote:
Narrator
The first breakthrough came from Germany. Frankfurt airport was central to the investigation. It was from here that many of the passengers on the fatal flight started their journey. They flew to London and then transferred to the 747 bound for America. After the crash, surprisingly, the German police hadn’t fully investigated all the luggage records at the airport. But luckily for them, Bogomira Erac, a computer programmer in baggage handling, had been more diligent. Her records tracked the luggage through the system.

Bogomira (speaking in German, voice-over translation)
We usually destroyed all the printouts, and I was just about ready to do that with this one, when on the spur of the moment I just picked it up and put it on the table. Later on I looked at it again and thought, well, I’ll keep this in memory of the people who were on the plane, and I put it in my locker.

Narrator
The weeks went by, and to Bogomira’s surprise, no one came to ask for the printout. Realising it could be useful, she eventually went to her supervisor.

Bogomira
And my supervisor said, “But the baggage list doesn’t exist any more.” And I stood up, went to my locker, and showed him. He was very, very surprised.

Narrator
Her printout showed that, on the day of the crash, one piece of luggage was transferred on to the Pan Am feeder flight from an Air Malta flight. A check revealed no passenger had transferred with it. The bag had travelled unaccompanied.

How do we reconcile that with her evidence in court? I'm struggling a bit.

Originally Posted by Ambrosia View Post
Pan Am ultimately went bankrupt over 103 - I can't help thinking that the investigation surrounding the point of ingestion of the bomb was a giant game of pass the buck with UK German and US interests all wanting to make dam sure none of them got sued by many angry relatives further down the line.

Coleman's book has a lot of detail about the lengths the US government went to to withhold documentary evidence from Pan Am that they needed for their defence and counter-claim. They even went to far as to prosecute Pan Am's solicitor for daring to question the official version of events - if you believe Coleman. Sounds a lot like the "public interest immunity" submissions to prevent evidence being disclosed to Megrahi's appeal.

Rolfe.
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Old 23rd November 2009, 05:47 PM   #239
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For immediate comparison, here's the relevant section of Bogomira's court evidence.

Quote:
Q Were you working the next day?
A Yes, I was doing the late shift the next day as well.
Q And did people at the airport speak about the crash?
A Yes, we talked a lot about this crash. In fact, that was virtually all that people talked about.
Q Did you decide to do something with the computer?
A Well, actually, it was quite late on. We've got -- we had a television in our unit. It's the news, I saw the images.
Q And did you then decide to make an inquiry in the computer system?
A Well, I was actually curious about that flight. A day earlier there had not been any problems, so I was interested to see how much luggage there had been. And so it was really because I was curious that I made a printout.
Q What did you make a printout of?
A I've got a KIK computer, and I made a printout of the plane from the day before, on the 21st of December.
Q Would you look at the screen with me, to Production 1060, image 1, please. Can we magnify to the top, please. Thank you. Do you recognise this document, Mrs. Erac?
A One moment, please. I've got to put my spectacles on.
Q Can we see the flight number?
A Yes. Yes, you can see the flight number.
Q And is it flight Pan Am 103?
A Yes, it's flight Pan Am 103, 1988, from December 21st was the date. It indicates the counter where the luggage for Pan Am 103 was checked in.
Q And is this the information that you asked the computer to print out?
A Yes, that's the information I wanted about the luggage which went through the luggage transportation system for that flight.
Q What did you do with the computer printout?
A Well, I took a look at it, and I was really surprised that so few pieces of luggage had been checked in whilst there were so many passengers on board. Generally, at that time of the year -- at that time, anyway -- Americans had much more luggage. I took a look to see whether all of the items of luggage came out of the system, the ones that had been checked in, and whether they were on time. And I saw that as far as the computer was concerned, nothing remained in Frankfurt.
Q Did you realise at the time that the Frankfurt flight had connected with a larger aircraft in London?
A No, I only found out about that later on.
Q All right. So once you had finished looking at the computer printout, did you give it to anyone?
A No. No. I didn't see anything problematic.
Q What did you do with the computer printout, then?
A No one instructed me to make this computer printout. I just did it for myself because I was curious about the way in which the flight had been dispatched, so I took a look at it, and then I kept it as a souvenir, one might say. I hung it up in my cupboard.
Q Were you due to take some holiday leave about this time?
A A few days later, I went to Slovenia. That was what I did every year; I went to Slovenia for the New Year.
Q Do you recollect when you returned to Frankfurt?
A I think it would have been around about the 15th of January, perhaps one day before that.
Q Did there come a stage when you told Mr. Berg that you had the printout?
A That was around a week later. When I went to Frankfurt again, I was on the early shift. It was sometime between the 20th and the 25th of January.
Q Thank you. Did you give the printout to Mr. Berg at that time?
A Yes, I gave Mr. Berg this printout, because I'd realised that there was actually no other documentation available.
Q Did he ask you to check the computer at that stage to see if there was any more information available?
A In the computer -- well, there was -- the data was there for one week, and after that they were written over. Mr. Berg just asked me to take a look in the archive in order to see whether there were teletype printouts. These were the things which came automatically from the computer. But I couldn't find anything.

I suppose in The Conspiracy Files she doesn't actually say she didn't make the printout herself. At a stretch, you could imagine that account starts at the same place as "I kept it as a souvenir." She printed it for her own information, to see if she could see anything odd about it, but when she saw nothing she volunteered nothing, because "No one instructed me to make this computer printout." She was about to throw it out, because that's what was usually done with printouts, but "on the spur of the moment I just picked it up and put it on the table. Later on I looked at it again and thought, well, I’ll keep this in memory of the people who were on the plane, and I put it in my locker."

I can just about make this the same story, especially if I postulate that Bogomira told the fuller version (where she made the printout out of curiosity the next day) to the BBC interviewer, but the early bit was cut for length. Could just be reportage that has made the court judgement and the Conspiracy Files version appear to be different.

Indeed, if you look at her first words ("We usually destroyed all the printouts, and I was just about ready to do that with this one"), it sounds very much as if she has said something else about "this one" prior to that. I suspect about how she came to make the printout.

So either she has been telling a reasonably consistent story because it's the truth, or she has stuck to more or less the same fabricated story all the time.

Rolfe.
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Old 23rd November 2009, 06:28 PM   #240
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Now can we look again at two salient points from the court evidence?

Quote:
Q What did you make a printout of?
A I've got a KIK computer, and I made a printout of the plane from the day before, on the 21st of December.

[....]A Yes, I gave Mr. Berg this printout, because I'd realised that there was actually no other documentation available.
Q Did he ask you to check the computer at that stage to see if there was any more information available?
A In the computer -- well, there was -- the data was there for one week, and after that they were written over. Mr. Berg just asked me to take a look in the archive in order to see whether there were teletype printouts. These were the things which came automatically from the computer. But I couldn't find anything.

[....]

the baggage -- I believe it was a KIK computer where the data were stored. They were stored in that computer for a few days, and it would be possible then to copy the data onto disks.

So Bogomira made a printout specially, using her KIK computer. This was the sort of computer the baggage data were stored on.

Does this suggest she transferred the data to "her" computer to make the printout?

She also mentions two other ways of retaining information from that system - you could transfer the data to discs (5.25 floppies, I suppose), or there were "teletype printouts, the things which came automatically from the computer."

But hey, "In the computer -- well, there was -- the data was there for one week, and after that they were written over."

One week. A whole week after this horrendous crash, with the BKA supposedly there at least by that time, knowing that flight might be implicated. And automatic printours floating around as well as Bogomira's little production, and the facility for copying it all to floppies. Not to mention the backups spoken of by the designer of the system, mainly because I have no idea how to search Robert Black's blofg to find the relevant entry.

But, "After the crash, surprisingly, the German police hadn’t fully investigated all the luggage records at the airport."

Give us a break!

Rolfe.
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