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Tags Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi , Charles Norrie , Lockerbie bombing , Pan Am 103 , US-Iran relations

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Old 31st August 2010, 07:30 AM   #81
Rolfe
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Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
If Bedford was working to an SOP which required him to find and use AVE4041 specifically, and no other container, why did he come out with the stuff about birth-dates rather than simply saying that was the number of the container he had to select?

Quite simple. Lots of people remember things in such ways. I remember the passphrase on my iphone because it's Shakespeare's year of death.

I think that's exactly what I was saying from the start. You have precisely NO evidence that he was required to go and look for AVE4041 as opposed to using the appropriate-sized container which first came to hand when he needed it.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Why do you now introduce AVN7511? McKee's suitcase wasn't in 7511, which originated from the baggage build-up hall and contained luggage from the Heathrow check-in desks. If you're changing your story to suggest that the "Iranian gent" didn't go anywhere near the interline shed but in fact went to the baggage build-up shed to sabotage 7511, then you have to realise that's a huge alteration in your proposed scenario.

Why don't you look at the damage diagrams in the AAIB report. I haven't got to the bottom of them yet and it's problematic when I do, but I still trying to learn, rather than criticising uselessly.

Yes, I know that 7511 was next to 4041 in the plane and also damaged by the explosion. I also know it was loaded in the baggage build-up shed with suitcases from the Heathrow check-in desks. Any suggestion that this was the container that was sabotaged rather than 4041, completely knocks your entire theory about McKee's suitcase (from Larnaca) and the alleged transponder right out of court.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
I already told you, I'm not going on Easter-egg hunts through lengthy documents. If you have a point to make regarding the AAIB report, make it. I hope it's better than the one where you interpret the statement that there was only one bomb to imply that the inspectors knew there were two but were cleverly hiding this knowledge behind particular wording.

What's wrong with good civil service wording. I'm quite practised at it myself.

I rather expect my critics to spend a little time reading and thinking about stuff rather than arguing from a position of incredulity.

Then please stop asserting stuff that is blatantly incredible on first principles.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
A pound of Semtex can produce quite a bang, anyone watching the footage of the Wyatt tests can see that. Why don't you ask Jim Swire though? He was an army explosives operative when he did his National Service, before he went to medical school.

What's this about. Nobody is denying Pan Am 103 was destroyed at least in part by a Semtex explosive. And a little bit of knowledge gained in National Service, does not really count as expertise.

You seemed to be suggesting that people were describing a bigger explosion than could be accounted for by a pound of Semtex. I was merely commenting that a pound of Semtex looks quite spectacular.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
And Robbie the Pict has an eyewitness who claims to have seen the intact plane crossing the A74 from west to east at only 500 feet before crash-landing on Lockerbie. Eyewitness testimony is frequently mistaken.

And Robbie the Pict has an eyewitness who claims to have seen the intact plane crossing the A74 from west to east at only 500 feet before crash-landing on Lockerbie. Eyewitness testimony is frequently mistaken.

Robbie the Pict is frequently mistaken. I do not regard him as a reliable analyst.

But we're talking about eye-witnesses. You seem to be prepared to believe one eye-witness because that story seems to fit your theory, but dismiss other eye-witnesses who say something different.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Oh dear, I'm sorry you're being suppressed. But here you are, discussing it freely on an open forum, and your article is still where you put it, unsabotaged, as far as I can see. Please explain why what was 14 seconds apart from what?

But the fact it is being suppressed in the interesting thing. Why?

Don't flatter yourself.

You're heading for trouble here too at the moment, but when trouble comes it will be because you're refusing to follow moderator instructions about using the quote tags, not because anyone wants to suppress you. Just as any trouble you're encountering at Wikipedia is bcause you're violating their site policies.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Oh Rolfe, you've got to do something for yourself. I'm looking at Fig B-4 od the AAIB report right now and it shows two debris trails, 2.4cm apart, which I think is a scaled 3.1km. At 800 kph, though the plane is slowing it would have taken 14 seconds between the appearance of the two trails.

Two trails, two explosions.

The norhern one is shorter and more densely populated (from the text in the report) than the southern one. Hence it was bigger and lower.

Two trails, two "halves" of the aircraft, heading in different directions.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Essentially hthe diagrams come from radar plots and the radr is cycling at 11 second intervals.

So 1st explosion happens. At 19:02:53 or 4 it is illumiated by the radar and Topp cries out. My Cia man pushes the trigger on the package bomb and seven seconds later (pager connection timer) the package bomb is detonated.

The CIA man has of course got a radar set and seen the first explosion because (a) its only on primary radar not secondary and (b) Topp sees 5 blobs (actually 4).

Then we get the second pass at 19:03:04 or thereabouts, followed by the report of crash and fire on the ground and the seismic report, calculated by AAIB later.

Please you've got to come up with an answer to why to debris trails. Hand waving just won't do. And I can bear a lazy investigator

I'll let Realdon deal with the radar and the remote-control explosion. This should be fun!

Rolfe.
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Old 31st August 2010, 07:34 AM   #82
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
You're heading for trouble here too at the moment, but when trouble comes it will be because you're refusing to follow moderator instructions about using the quote tags, not because anyone wants to suppress you. Just as any trouble you're encountering at Wikipedia is bcause you're violating their site policies.

Oh dear, it's happened. And I suppose he'll declare that he's being "suppressed" here now too.

I want my cat-toy back! It's the Pakistani homoeopaths all over again!

Rolfe.
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Old 31st August 2010, 08:39 AM   #83
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Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Dear Sabretooth,

It's impregnable to people who think rigidly like you.
You mean to people who use facts and logic instead of wild made-up stories?
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Old 31st August 2010, 09:10 AM   #84
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Charles,

As I said in my post #2, this CT is new to me. Until I happened to read your OP and blog article, I had no idea that the U.S. was being implicated in any sort of shenanigans regarding the bombing of PA103.

I asked, albeit indirectly, in post #2 that you show me some support for your assertions. I later pointed out in my post #10 that your blog seems to be chock full of beliefs and assumptions and lacks facts and evidence. If you want to sell me that this CT has any base in reality, I hoped that you would provide me with some level of verification.

After all, the burden of proof always lies with the accuser. Not the other way around.

Instead, you regress into the old CT form of debate by using insults, circular reasoning, fantasy, and baseless assumptions to push some hidden agenda. I honestly had anticipated that you would debate me openly about this. After all, like I said, this group of accusations is completely new to me. Who better to attempt a factual discussion about a possible CT than someone who has limited knowledge of the subject?

As it stands, to put it bluntly, I think your accusation is nothing but diaper filling. Your claims are full of the usual CT garbage…planted evidence, secret deals, government plots, hidden agendas…all without any shred of proof that these allegations are anything more than a figment of your imagination.

So, by and large, your blog and post failed. I’m not the least bit convinced of any plot involving the U.S., Iran, or the Easter Bunny to allow the destruction of PA103 and the hundreds of innocent lives in the air and on the ground. Your attempt to prove this CT never even got off the ground.
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Old 31st August 2010, 09:26 AM   #85
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While Charles is on the naughty step, I'll just explain why I'm interested in any further primary sources he has regarding the loading of the Heathrow interline luggage and the Frankfurt online transfer.

The Bedford suitcase appeared in the container before the Frankfurt feeder flight landed, among the interline luggage transferring to PA103 from earlier flights landing at Heathrow. If it's accepted that he didn't hallucinate the entire thing, and the judges certainly accepted that, then either it was a suitcase introduced by nefarious means, or it was genuinely one of the interline transfer bags. The judges went for the latter, but for no particularly good reason, as its owner was never identified and no suitcase which appeared to match that sighting was recovered at Lockerbie.

The positioning of the explosion in AVE4041 certainly appears to absolve the Heathrow check-in security, as no Heathrow check-in luggage was in that container. However, it doesn't exclusively implicate the Frankfurt luggage either, because of these interline bags already in the container. Just as the Official Verson later decided the suitcase had arrived at Frankfurt on an interline flight from Malta, it's perfectly possible it could have arrived at Heathrow from one of the direct interline flights, and have been any one of the ten or so such cases said to have been in that container.

There's approximately zip information available about this possibility though. I can't find any primary source that says anything about these passengers or their luggage, and how this possibility was eliminated.

What is available from secondary sources is that there weren't many such passengers - some say about thirteen. That's still a bit odd for only ten suitcases though. Which is why I'd like Charles to expand on his "first-class luggage" claim, but then I don't see 13 passengers generating as many as ten first-class suitcases.

Then again we know who some of them were. Bernt Carlsson, the UN envoy. The US officials - McKee, Gannon, O'Connor, La Riviere and possibly others. Some or all of them were CIA. Gannon's suitcase (IIRC) was however left behind and found in a Heathrow baggage store after the disaster.

I think, principally, that the Bedford suitcase (the one on the left) was the bomb suitcase. I also think it was placed there directly by one of the terrorists (possibly Abu Elias himself) while Bedford was on his break. I think the right-hand suitcase, which might have been a matching pair to the first, was a place-holder, to try as far as possible to ensure the bomb suitcase stayed on the hull side of the container. (If the forensic conclusions are to be believed this didn't entirely work as planned and the case was moved by the loaders when the Frankfurt luggage was being added, but in the event this didn't matter because all that happened was that Karen Noonan's red Tourister suitcase was slipped under it, and it wasn't moved inboard.)

I'm rather interested in Gannon's lost suitcase though. Was this some sort of a bag-switch operation? Was the tag taken from Gannon's case to be used on the bomb bag? Is there any significance to the fact that this is the suitcase of a CIA operative? Though now I look at the small wikipedia page on Gannon, I note an implication that his belongings were found at Lockerbie - though this might just have been a carry-on bag.

I'd also like to know more about all the Heathrow interline passengers. We know all passengers who travelled on the Malta-Frankfurt flight were followed up to the point of harrassment, investigating them for terrorist connections, and nothing was found. Surely the Heathrow interline passengers should have been similarly investigated? We don't even know for sure that they all caught the flight, though I think they did. I think they all died, but could one of them have been an unwitting mule?

I questioned whether the ten or so bags we know about in AVE 4041 were all the interline luggage there was, partly because I wanted to know if we could be sure the CIA officers' luggage was among them. I was persuaded that it was, because where else would these cases have gone? If there's any primary-source evidence that these cases were only the first-class interline luggage, and the second-class went in a different container, that would be quite interesting as regards following this up.

There's a great deal of primary-source evidence available in this case, so much that one person can't reasonably assimilate it all. So when someone makes a claim like this, it's useful to enquire where they got it from, as it might be relevant and important. I have a sinking feeling Charles has just got the wrong end of the stick though.

Rolfe.
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Old 31st August 2010, 09:29 AM   #86
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Originally Posted by sabretooth47 View Post
I’m not the least bit convinced of any plot involving [....] Iran [....] to allow the destruction of PA103 and the hundreds of innocent lives in the air and on the ground.

Oh, I think there's a much better case to be made on that front. Just not Charles's case.

Rolfe.
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Old 31st August 2010, 10:13 AM   #87
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
Oh, I think there's a much better case to be made on that front. Just not Charles's case.

Rolfe.
I suppose I could buy into a theory that Iran had something to do with it...after all they were pissed about IR655.

My personal CT speculation would be that Iran paid off Libya/Megrahi to make something happen.

Again, I want to throw in a disclaimer...I'm not pushing this theory because I just made it up and have never even bothered to research or even seriously believe it...nor do I have any intention to do so. All I'm implying is that it could be viewed as a valid possibility.

But this nonsense about the CIA teaming up with Iran to allow a symbollic act of revenge for IR655 by blowing up PA103...and then frame Libya for it...and get GHWB in the White House? That is just a bad fictional movie-plot. And my guess is that James Bond would have stopped it all from happening anyway.
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Old 31st August 2010, 11:13 AM   #88
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Originally Posted by sabretooth47 View Post
I suppose I could buy into a theory that Iran had something to do with it... after all they were pissed [off?] about IR655.

I think that remains the most probable explanation, certainly. There's quite a lot of circumstantial evidence to support it.

Originally Posted by sabretooth47 View Post
My personal CT speculation would be that Iran paid off Libya/Megrahi to make something happen.

The first part of that couldn't be refuted, certainly, because it's not known exactly who got the bomb on the plane. Several commentators have supported the suggestion. However, there's actually little to no evidence that Libya had any direct hand in it (though they might have supplied munitions, as they did to a lot of terrorist groups such as the IRA).

The second part, no. There's overwhelming evidence that the bomb didn't travel on the alleged Malta-Frankfurt-London route, and thus that Megrahi had nothing at all to do with it. There's overwhelming evidence that the CIA and the US Department of Justice (enthusiastically supported by the Scottish Crown Prosecution Service and the Lord Advocate) conspired to fit Megrahi up for the crime.

There's good evidence to suggest that this wasn't just a standard "let's fit this guy up because we can, and we can't pin it on anyone else" exercise, but rather the end-point of a deliberate conspiracy to divert the investigation away from the PFLP-GC/Iran theory, for reasons that aren't entirely clear but some of which can be guessed at.

There's pretty strong evidence that at least two items of physical evidence were actually planted. However, it's important to realise that this being the case isn't in any way necessary for the case against Megrahi to be shown to be complete smoke and mirrors. He still didn't do it even if all the physical evidence is completely kosher.

Originally Posted by sabretooth47 View Post
Again, I want to throw in a disclaimer... I'm not pushing this theory because I just made it up and have never even bothered to research or even seriously believe it... nor do I have any intention to do so. All I'm implying is that it could be viewed as a valid possibility.

I don't want to derail this thread beyond redemption before Charles comes back - apart from anything else, I started it to prevent him derailing one of the other Lockerbie threads with his mad theory! However, we do have quite a few other threads about the incident if you want to discuss the wider issue.

Originally Posted by sabretooth47 View Post
But this nonsense about the CIA teaming up with Iran to allow a symbollic act of revenge for IR655 by blowing up PA103... and then frame Libya for it... and get GHWB in the White House? That is just a bad fictional movie-plot. And my guess is that James Bond would have stopped it all from happening anyway.

Mmmm, quite! I have a bit of a feeling the CIA was mixed up in it somehow, but not like that. I suspect the atrocity was in some way hooked into a covert CIA operation, possibly something similar to or related to Oliver North's little games, and/or an operation actually attempting to prevent Iran from downing an airliner. Then when it all went horribly, inconceivably wrong, and the terrorists got through the covert operation and the plane blew apart, and the investigators showed signs of turning up stuff that would be seriously embarrassing, a cover-up and misdirection operation was mounted. The indictment of Megrahi was the end result of that.

I've never seen any credible evidence suggesting a LIHOP or MIHOP operation.

Rolfe.
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Old 31st August 2010, 01:12 PM   #89
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Might I say this thread is going quite well. Not so much for Charles' theory, but for exploring the issue in general. So thank you, Charles and Rolfe.

Thanks to Realdon popping in. I couldn't have said how much sense his scenario for triggering the second bomb really was. So far I've been interested in the reasoning why he suspects a CIA plot to help kill the plane, and the physical clues he says supports it. This was a "brisant explosion" removing A patch of metal from the rear of the plane. He refers to an AAIB graphic showing a patch painted white (missing/never recovered) where the bomb was. I'm not sure which of these seven or so apparent explosions all over the plane is the one he means. Charles, any help?


For my part, I take the following points:
1 - from Rolfe and Charles, Bedford's possible birthdate-triggered memory of the container number might mean nothing. In fact I catch myself memorizing pointless numbers quite often.

Charles needs some education on the Bedford story. If he were prompted to recall this bag (something I wondered about myself once), why? Almost instantly, at the same time, they started ignoring all clues pointing to Heathrow, while finding the bomb was in a brown hardshell case like Samsonite make. So the biggest clue - such a case was seen in the relevant container originating at Heathrow (or at least not from PA103A). You suggest investigators led him to state, and a lot else suggest the first thing they did with it is rule it a coincidence and explain it away. A whole other case of the same description came in off the 103A and wound up in almost the same spot, it's reasoned. The one Bedford saw, the coincidence one, was just never found. I believe it's the only case that didn't turn up.

For reference, several posts on the issue
http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/...suitcases.html

As for Bedford's memory fading by 2000, rather you can just about see it being broken all at once in 1990:
http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/...hat-brown.html
Quote:
Q And as far as the colour of that particular case is concerned, have you always expressed the same view as to what the colour was?
A To my knowledge, I have.
Q Isn't it fair to say that on different occasions you thought it was brown or maroon, and at one point you were quite certain it was maroon?
A Yes.
Q Again this is no criticism of you, but I am anxious to know what the state of your evidence is about colour. In view of the different expressions of view over the period, are you able to be clear at all as to what the colour of that case was?
A No.
Q With regard to the suitcase that you saw lying down flat to the left side of the container, I would like you to think back as best you can. Could that suitcase have been a blue suitcase with a maroon or brown trim?
A I couldn't say.
I admit that last is a little imaginative, but co-considering the relevance of his story and the way the FAI (people?) treated it, it's interesting. Before, he remembered one color - brown/maroony brown - and told the FAI just that, just minutes earlier. Next he's suddenly "admitting" he's alternately called it brown OR maroon, and at the end so completely unsure of the color that it might have been blue.

(as a side note, RARDE had decided the case beneath the bomb bag was a blue American Tourister case, but it came from Frankfurt on the 103A)

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Old 31st August 2010, 01:33 PM   #90
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
The one Bedford saw, the coincidence one, was just never found. I believe it's the only case that didn't turn up.

I don't think that's correct - the court judgement says that some cases were never recovered. I imagine some might have gone into the fireball at Sherwood Crescent, and maybe one or two into the Winterhope reservoir? I don't know if they dragged it or not.

This was part of the justification for hand-waving away the Bedford evidence. However, it's striking how little is said about the investigation and categorisation of the suitcases recovered, and the matching of them to the passengers. Everything possible was eventually returned to the relatives of course, with armies of Lockerbie women washing and ironing stained clothes so as to return them in good condition. However, surely each case that was found was catalogued and photographed for the purpose of elimination? But I've never heard anything about the results of this exercise.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
(as a side note, RARDE had decided the case beneath the bomb bag was a blue American Tourister case, but it came from Frankfurt on the 103A)

Red American Tourister, I believe, belonging to Karen Noonan.

Rolfe.
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Old 31st August 2010, 04:10 PM   #91
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Charles needs some education on the Bedford story. If he were prompted to recall this bag (something I wondered about myself once), why? Almost instantly, at the same time, they started ignoring all clues pointing to Heathrow, while finding the bomb was in a brown hardshell case like Samsonite make. So the biggest clue - such a case was seen in the relevant container originating at Heathrow (or at least not from PA103A). You suggest investigators led him to state, and a lot else suggest the first thing they did with it is rule it a coincidence and explain it away.

Actually, it's even dafter than this. (Charles's story, I mean.)

He's saying that John Bedford's description of the maroon/brown Samsonite can be dismissed because (a) Bedford went home early that day on the suggestion of his supervisor, and (b) because the police who interviewed him a fortnight later were able to plant the entire story in his head as a false memory.

His reason for alleging that last is that originally the conspiracy was going to involve the PFLP-GC inserting the bomb at Heathrow. (For some reason using the interline shed instead of the build-up shed.) But later, it was decided this was politically inconvenient and it was changed to Megrahi at Luqa, except they were stuck with Bedford's false memory.

You rightly point out that in fact the united front that it wasn't a Heathrow introduction was in place from the first week or two of the investigation, so this is very strange behaviour. But it's madder than that, as I said.

Charles's explanation for the Maltese clothes is that they were bought by the CIA just as Gauci described, with the firm intention that he should remember the transaction. The purpose of this was of course to support the fabricated story of the Maltese origin of the bomb.

Now wait a minute. The clothes were bought with the intention of planting them (suitably shredded) on the ground at Lockerbie, to show that the bomb had come from Malta. The purchase was made in late November 1988.

Then on 4th January 1989 the police deliberately planted a false memory in Bedford's mind, that the bomb suitcase was introduced at Heathrow. All the while denying that the bomb had been introduced at Heathrow. Then later, it was politically convenient to change that plan to allege a Malta origin - wasn't it awfully convenient that these clothes where bought way back in 1988, and planted on the ground immediately after the bombing, so that later, when it was decided not to go with the Heathrow idea after all, it was all there....



Charles needs to think his ideas through a lot better than that.

Rolfe.
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Old 1st September 2010, 03:03 AM   #92
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
I don't think that's correct - the court judgement says that some cases were never recovered. I imagine some might have gone into the fireball at Sherwood Crescent, and maybe one or two into the Winterhope reservoir? I don't know if they dragged it or not.
Perhaps earlier, into an engine or even the North Sea. Point taken - Bedford's bag was among the few never recovered. Unless it was the one partially recovered in several pieces...

Quote:
Red American Tourister, I believe, belonging to Karen Noonan.

Rolfe
Correct owner, but it awas motly blue. (had some red and black parts as well). But the blue foam outer skin of it played into the re-branding of PI/911:
http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/...on-forest.html

This was a 12" square, ginormous chunk of brown hardshell Samsonite case. Presumed from the bomb bag, a fully square foot remanant. ?? Dr. Hayes at RARDE didn't think so and first called in the underside of a case beneath the bomb bag, that was resting directly on the container floor. Just where Bedford had reported the left-hand case among the two he saw arranged thusly (big brown ones across the bottom, both flat on the floor, exact model and size guessed).

Later when Feraday looked at it, he found blue foam plastics strongly adhering to this bottom side, suggesting it was resting on Noonan's bag, which had come from Frankfurt. Why did Hayes miss blue foam on maroony-brown and conclude it was against the metal? Another mystery.

Anyway...

Quote:
Then on 4th January 1989 the police deliberately planted a false memory in Bedford's mind, that the bomb suitcase was introduced at Heathrow. All the while denying that the bomb had been introduced at Heathrow. Then later, it was politically convenient to change that plan to allege a Malta origin - wasn't it awfully convenient that these clothes where bought way back in 1988, and planted on the ground immediately after the bombing, so that later, when it was decided not to go with the Heathrow idea after all, it was all there....
You're right, and good catch. Without even leaving his own forwarded points, this explanation would create an almost paradoxical situation of cross-cutting cover-ups. And the whole idea that would have one even entertain it is based on limited access to facts, sporadic dismissal of relevant points as probably fake, points that have been routed here is a matter of hours...

Charles, what do you think? What are we missing, and what do any of us have right?
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Old 1st September 2010, 07:31 AM   #93
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I had a long-ish post about ready, when my computer swallowed the lot. However, I'll note now that Charles's period of suspension is over, so I hope he comes back to the thread.

I've noticed a tendency among woo-woos who show up thinking they can ignore the rules and get an early suspension as a result, simply to disappear in a permanent huff. Some appear on other forums declaring that the JFEF forum has banned them because it wants to suppress their beliefs.

I'm sure Charles won't do that though, will he....

Rolfe.
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Old 1st September 2010, 07:37 AM   #94
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Well, if he hadn't got suspended, I wouldn't have seen his name in Public Notices, and I'd have missed this gem of a thread.
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Old 1st September 2010, 10:17 AM   #95
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Silly comments like this are not worthy of you Rolfe. I can prove I am being suppressed.
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Old 1st September 2010, 10:21 AM   #96
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It was handed by AAIB to RARDE. If it is the chip in the plate on the side of AVE4041 PA, it would have had to turn round and be forced into the plate. Explosions don't do that you know. My inference is that AAIB gave it to RARDE, because AAIB wanted to produce a proper report and RARDE, whose investigators Hayes and Fereday, had already had cases thrown out against them in the English appeal courts, were patsies up to no good.
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Old 1st September 2010, 10:22 AM   #97
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David, it's an inference. How do you set off a seconde xeplosion 14 seconds after the first. You you a radar set and a pager. Of course, the CIA is not going to tell you what they did!
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Old 1st September 2010, 10:24 AM   #98
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David, what is that package that traffic police carry to detect speeding cars? It's a radar set. Of course the CIA has more sophisticated jobs than that!
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Old 1st September 2010, 10:25 AM   #99
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Dear Zooterkin,

This is absolutely serious and is not written for your mere entertainment.
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Old 1st September 2010, 10:27 AM   #100
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Dear Rolfe,

I'd send you my stuff first but you are so offish and sniffy, and only want to boast publicly of your inadequacies as a thinker.
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Old 1st September 2010, 10:36 AM   #101
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Dear Caustic,

I am certainly not the best person to ask about suitcases, given that I believe John Parks is right. I am not sure today exactly where the blown up suitcase was found geographically. No for that matter Mr McKee's except the CIA were quick to plant the bits thay wanted to plant on that Lockerbie hillside.

I really haven't seen anything in this forum, which should at least be congratulated for picking up my story, that convinces me the experts who preen and pimp themselves here really know anything.

Sabretooth and David are of the incredulity/impossibility school of commentator and really as far as I can see belive that argument consists of a little bit of nay-saying.

Ignorance of this nature we can well do without.
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Old 1st September 2010, 10:38 AM   #102
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Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Silly comments like this are not worthy of you Rolfe. I can prove I am being suppressed.

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Old 1st September 2010, 10:42 AM   #103
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Dear Rolfe, we can dismiss the Bedford suitcases as having anything to do with it at all.

The official story is that the cases were loaded and Luqa, passed through Frankfurt undetected, and got onto Pan Am 103. The Bedford story is not part of this scenario. A suitcase conatining a bomb does not declare its nature so it can be found by a baggage loader and mysteriously loaded by another (which Mr Kamboj siad was not the case). So Mr Bedford's recall may well have been influenced by being asked for his recall by the Met police.

Oh, Rolfe can you now reall what you were doing on 1 September 1988?
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Old 1st September 2010, 10:44 AM   #104
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I really don't know what a film clip from Monty Pyton and the Holy Grail is doing here. Unlike the poster I was an extra in MPatHG, and got £2 for my day's work on the Ochilll Hills!
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Old 1st September 2010, 10:47 AM   #105
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Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Sabretooth and David are of the incredulity/impossibility school of commentator and really as far as I can see belive that argument consists of a little bit of nay-saying.

Ignorance of this nature we can well do without.
So I'm ignorant because I don't believe your opinions and I want to see some proof?

Listen, this little story you cooked up about planted evidence and government wheeling-and-dealing is nothing more than your own personal speculation.

If you want me to believe you, then show me some evidence that you are building your opinions through facts.

I'm open-minded and I'm willing to listen...but you are talking in circles and refusing to openly debate.

So...let's try again, shall we?

You say that the bomb evidence was planted.
I am skeptical that this is a true claim.
What is your source that this claim is accurate?
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Old 1st September 2010, 11:05 AM   #106
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Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
It was handed by AAIB to RARDE. If it is the chip in the plate on the side of AVE4041 PA, it would have had to turn round and be forced into the plate. Explosions don't do that you know. My inference is that AAIB gave it to RARDE, because AAIB wanted to produce a proper report and RARDE, whose investigators Hayes and Fereday, had already had cases thrown out against them in the English appeal courts, were patsies up to no good.

There was an explosion in a radio-cassette player inside a suitcase inside a baggage container inside an aeroplane. Please explain to me how everything involved only moves in a dead straight line in this situation. Please explain how it's impossible for elastic collisions to occur in such a way that a tiny fragment of circuit board (from the radio) ends up behind a plate fixed to the outside of the container.

The way you think, snooker would be an impossible game.

ETA: I'm not personally in any doubt that Hayes and Feraday (and Thurman) were as bent as corkscrews. I need more evidence that than to cast doubt on any particular piece of evidence though.

Rolfe.
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Old 1st September 2010, 11:11 AM   #107
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Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Dear Rolfe,

I'd send you my stuff first but you are so offish and sniffy, and only want to boast publicly of your inadequacies as a thinker.

Charles, stop it. Personally, I don't care, but if you go on collecting yellow cards at this rate, you'll get suspended again. The mods are obviously watching you now.

Rolfe.
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Old 1st September 2010, 11:36 AM   #108
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Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
I am certainly not the best person to ask about suitcases, given that I believe John Parks is right.

Ah yes, Parkes. Members might like to read his deathless prose in his own words. It's here, http://www.mathaba.net/news/news1/lockerbie/index.shtml, but you have to scroll down a bit to the comments. Personally, I think this is the language of the raving conspiracy nutter.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
I am not sure today exactly where the blown up suitcase was found geographically.

But you said it was "in the remains of AVE4041". Where did you get that information from? You just made it up, didn't you? When I told you that AVE4041 was found in pieces, the pieces being in different places, without even an identifiable "inside" never mind a single location, you merely said, well, the suitcase was associated with the container.

You just made that up too.

I've also told you, with pictures, that there wasn't an identifiable "blown up suitcase" found anywhere either. The largest piece was just over a foot square, there was another piece a bit smaller, and most of the pieces were just scraps. They were found scattered to the four winds, and picked up one at a time by different people as the area was combed. Probably about 90% of the case was never found.

So little was found that it took the investigators some time to decide this was the remains of the "primary suitcase". Also, some of the pieces were obviously bronze while others weren't because the bronze skin had been lost, so again it took time to piece all this together.

This idea of the recognisable remains of the baggage container being found, with the recognisable remains of a blown-up suitcase and a blown-up radio-cassette player inside it is pure fantasy.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
No for that matter Mr McKee's except the CIA were quick to plant the bits thay wanted to plant on that Lockerbie hillside.

But you have no idea what was or what wasn't found. You have no evidence at all that the CIA planted anything at all on the hillsides in Scotland. You're just making it up.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
I really haven't seen anything in this forum, which should at least be congratulated for picking up my story, that convinces me the experts who preen and pimp themselves here really know anything.

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. This forum isn't particularly expert on the Lockerbie incident at all. There are people here who have told you they have an open mind. You need to make a sound case though, and so far that's not going too well.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Sabretooth and David are of the incredulity/impossibility school of commentator and really as far as I can see belive that argument consists of a little bit of nay-saying.

Ignorance of this nature we can well do without.

You're getting dangerously close to personal attacks again. Please don't, I don't want them to suspend you again.

Sabretooth and David don't know much about Lockerbie. They want you to present the evidence you have to support your hypothesis. That's what you need to do.

So far, you haven't even shown me your source for declaring that only first-class luggage was placed in AVE4041.

Rolfe.
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Old 1st September 2010, 12:08 PM   #109
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Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Dear Rolfe, we can dismiss the Bedford suitcases as having anything to do with it at all.

Why? Just because they don't suit your personal theory?

Bedford was interviewed by the Met on 3rd January 1989, less than two weeks after the disaster. This was well before most of the suitcase fragments had been retrieved, never mind identified as forensically significant. He told the police that he'd seen "a maroony-brown hardshell suitcase, of the type Samsonite make" in container AVE4041 in approximately the position of the eventual explosion, some time before PA103A landed from Frankfurt. He told them he had not put the case there (although he was responsible for loading that container with the interline luggage arriving from other incoming flights), it and another case had appeared mysteriously while he was on his tea break.

I agree the Zeist judges dismissed this as not having anything to do with it at all. However, why do you agree with them?

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
The official story is that the cases were loaded and Luqa, passed through Frankfurt undetected, and got onto Pan Am 103. The Bedford story is not part of this scenario.

And your point is? The Official Version is just marginally less ridiculous than yours.

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
A suitcase conatining a bomb does not declare its nature so it can be found by a baggage loader and mysteriously loaded by another (which Mr Kamboj siad was not the case). So Mr Bedford's recall may well have been influenced by being asked for his recall by the Met police.

OK, let's go through this again. On 3rd January nobody in the investigation had identified a bronze Samsonite hardshell as being the "primary suitcase". So how could anyone have instructed the officers of the Met to plant such a false memory in Bedford's mind?

Oh, you say, but the pieces had already been planted to be found. No, this doesn't compute either. What was also found was a bunch of clothes of Maltese manufacture, which were later traced to a Malta retailer. This retailer remembered the sale of these clothes, only a few weeks before the bombing.

You have stated that you believe these clothes were also planted, to support the fabricated Official Version. However, the version these clothes support is the one where the bomb suitcase went into the system at Luqa and flew into Heathrow on PA103A. If the clothes were bought by the CIA with the intention of supporting that version, it was done weeks before the actual bombing.

Why would anyone order detectives from the Met to plant a false memory of a mysterious suitcase fitting the description of the bomb bag, being present at Heathrow before PA103A landed?

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Oh, Rolfe can you now reall what you were doing on 1 September 1988?

What has that to do with the price of fish? If something came on the news right now which made me realise something I'd done at work at 4 o'clock this afternoon was directly related to a huge terrorist attack, you bet your bottom dollar I'd be able to tell the cops all about my afternoon at work, less than two weeks later.

Rolfe.
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Old 1st September 2010, 12:29 PM   #110
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Charles,
I'm reading your blog again. I came across something I find suspect.

Originally Posted by BLOG ARTICLE
Having agreed the Iranians could blow up a US plane, CIA officials faced a conundrum. How could they get US government personnel off a doomed flight without alarming the wider public? Once I thought about the outcome of the Helsinki warning, it was obvious that this was their solution.

On 5th December 1988, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a security bulletin. It said a man with an Arabic accent had telephoned the US Embassy in Helsinki, Finland, to threaten that a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt, West Germany, to the US would be blown up within the next fortnight by someone associated with Abu Nidal, a militant Palestinian group. He said a Finnish woman would unknowingly carry the bomb on board.

On 13th December, this 'Helsinki Warning' was distributed among US State Department staff. Some people are thought to have booked onto other airlines, leaving empty seats on the Pan Am flight that were sold cheaply to students and others. They became cheap and disposable bodies – I find it utterly disgraceful that the CIA treated these people this way.

The CIA chose Helsinki to minimise the public visibility of the warning, because Finland is neutral territory and not usually the target of terrorist attacks. The Helsinki warning was never properly publicised beyond US government personnel, as demonstrated by the 48 students who obliviously bought cheap tickets on Pan Am flights.
You are implying that the CIA had advanced knowledge of the PA103. But according to the information reported on wikipedia, there were 4 (and possibly a 5th) CIA officers onboard PA103.

If the CIA knew about the attack, why would they sacrifice their own agents?
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Old 1st September 2010, 12:47 PM   #111
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Another question:

Originally Posted by BLOG ARTICLE
Peter Claydon told the court the bomb created an 8-inch square hole in AVE4041 PA and a 20-inch square hole in the skin of the aircraft. This was, however, small compared to the size of the plane and experts were puzzled about how such a small explosion could have caused so much damage.
This really isn't puzzling at all. PA103 was at 31,000 ft. At this altitude, the air pressure outside of the aircraft was a quarter of that at ground level.

Any size rupture in the skin of a pressurized aircraft at that altitude is wholly destructive. Physics tells us that the atmosphere inside the aircraft would immediately and violently attempt to even out with the outside pressue. The skin of the plane began to "zipper" open, much like a can of beer that has been shaken up and punctured.

The structural integrity and flight characteristics of the aircraft would have been compromised in micro-seconds. Which in turn caused the disintegration of the aircraft as a whole.

I completely disagree with your assessment that this hole was too small to cause enough damage.
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Old 1st September 2010, 01:04 PM   #112
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Originally Posted by sabretooth47 View Post
Charles,
I'm reading your blog again. I came across something I find suspect.

You are implying that the CIA had advanced knowledge of the PA103. But according to the information reported on wikipedia, there were 4 (and possibly a 5th) CIA officers onboard PA103.

If the CIA knew about the attack, why would they sacrifice their own agents?

That's easy. This version of the CT believes that the CIA wanted rid of the people it allowed to travel. Specifically, the story goes that McKee was hurrying back to the USA in a fury to expose some sort of drugs-for-hostages deal that was going on, Oliver North style, and elements in the CIA found this a convenient way to scupper that.

I would add that there appears to be no actual evidence to support the widely-held belief that PA103 was unusually empty that evening, or that there were a statistically improbable number of late cancellations on the flight. (I think Jim Swire at least half-believes this part, which I suspect is part of the reason for his fervent campaigning. But as far as I can tell, it's groundless.)

Rolfe.
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Old 1st September 2010, 01:10 PM   #113
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Originally Posted by sabretooth47 View Post
This really isn't puzzling at all. PA103 was at 31,000 ft. At this altitude, the air pressure outside of the aircraft was a quarter of that at ground level.

Any size rupture in the skin of a pressurized aircraft at that altitude is wholly destructive. Physics tells us that the atmosphere inside the aircraft would immediately and violently attempt to even out with the outside pressue. The skin of the plane began to "zipper" open, much like a can of beer that has been shaken up and punctured.

The structural integrity and flight characteristics of the aircraft would have been compromised in micro-seconds. Which in turn caused the disintegration of the aircraft as a whole.
This isn't true, if you read the AAIB report they were quite surprised that the plane had blown apart from such a small explosion. I'm writing from memory here but I believe the location of the bomb allowed pressure waves to damage major structural parts of the fuselage, causing the break up. If the bomb had been placed slightly differently it might just have blown a hole in the side, and allowed the plane to make an emergency landing.
Some conspiracy theorists have assumed the bomb must have been directly attached to the fuselage to cause the break up.

Welcome Charles Norrie, since Longtabber PE went back to his chickens the Lockerbie threads have been a bit dull. You seem to be filling his shoes nicely.
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Old 1st September 2010, 01:21 PM   #114
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Originally Posted by Guybrush Threepwood View Post
This isn't true, if you read the AAIB report they were quite surprised that the plane had blown apart from such a small explosion. I'm writing from memory here but I believe the location of the bomb allowed pressure waves to damage major structural parts of the fuselage, causing the break up. If the bomb had been placed slightly differently it might just have blown a hole in the side, and allowed the plane to make an emergency landing.
Some conspiracy theorists have assumed the bomb must have been directly attached to the fuselage to cause the break up.

Welcome Charles Norrie, since Longtabber PE went back to his chickens the Lockerbie threads have been a bit dull. You seem to be filling his shoes nicely.
Ah...I see that you are correct, sir.

From wikipedia:
Quote:
Shock waves from the blast ricocheted back from the fuselage skin in the direction of the bomb, meeting pulses still coming from the initial explosion. This produced Mach stem shock waves, calculated to be 25% faster than, and double the power of, the waves from the explosion itself
but, to reiterate my point, this fact that a "small" blast hole initiated the destruction of the aircraft shouldn't be such a surprise.
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Old 1st September 2010, 01:32 PM   #115
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To expand on what GT said, the positioning of the bomb seems to have been extraordinarily unlucky. Or not, as the case may be.

There were a couple of earlier aircraft bombing attempts, at least one of them a Jibril operation, where the bomb merely blew a hole in the baggage hold and the plane limped back to land. I think in one case some passengers were sucked out of the hole and killed but the rest were saved.

However, in the Air India crash in 1985, which involved a 747 just like the Lockerbie incident, the plane did pretty much the same as Maid of the Seas did. This was because the bomb, planted by Sikh extremists, was (apparently by chance) exactly on a structurally weak spot where two large parts of the aircraft were joined at manufacture.

Much has been made of the cross-sectional position of the Lockerbie bomb being in precisely the spot in the container closest to the skin of the plane. However, it appears that the saggital section positioning was just as important, at the section 41/42 fuselage join. (I'm taking this from Carl Davies, who is a bit of a CTer, but this information appears to be accurate.)

The AAIB report had to do quite a bit of calculation and so on to show how the small explosion could have done so much damage. They did however conclude that there was only one device on board. Which Charles thinks means they know there were two but they're just obliquely hinting at the second to tease us.

The single baggage container with the Frankfurt transfer luggage was the last on, because there was a very small time window between the feeder flight and the transatlantic one. This seems to have been the case routinely, and as far as I know it was always at position 41. I have a suspicion that whoever planted the bomb knew enough about the baggage loading for that flight to spot this opportunity.

ETA: I'm not sure the Mach Stem effect could have been reliably predicted by the terrorists. However, the effect of position 41 was presumably predictable, after what happened to Air India 182.

Rolfe.
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Old 1st September 2010, 02:09 PM   #116
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Dear Zooterkin,

This is absolutely serious and is not written for your mere entertainment.
Perhaps not, but it's coming out entertaining. Any chance of less drama and more evidence? I haven't seen much for careful re-presentation of your facts, bullet lists, etc...

Originally Posted by CharlesNorrie View Post
Dear Caustic,

I am certainly not the best person to ask about suitcases, given that I believe John Parks is right.
Didn't he just say there was a second explosion? Did he specify that the first one was also not in a suitcase?

Quote:
I am not sure today exactly where the blown up suitcase was found geographically.
I sector mostly, a bit in H and K.

Quote:
No for that matter Mr McKee's except the CIA were quick to plant the bits thay wanted to plant on that Lockerbie hillside.
I'm not sure where that was found either, but they cut it open to remove something. Evidence things were being planted at the time?

You decry the "ignorance" of posters here. Said ignorance is of your theory. You are now a member here. If you don't explain your theory and its supports clearly, who is to blame for that ignorance? Who else is supposed to explain it for you?

Here are some questions you could address:

- Reasons why the CIA felt the bombing had to succeed.
- How two debris trails = two bombs
- How anything else = two bombs
- What exactly the original cover-up was to be, with its early clues pointing both to Malta and London origin
- Is there anything in your original theory that you're starting to re-think yet? Do you do re-thinking?

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Old 1st September 2010, 02:28 PM   #117
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Just a bit of an aside about the small bomb and the importance of positioning.

The Official Version would have us believe that the bomb was sent on its merry unaccompanied way from Malta, to be loaded into AVE4041 wherever the loaders chose to put it. I can't say what the chances were that it would end up close enough to the skin to breach the hull, even, but certainly less than 50%. Maybe 30%?

The Official Version would also have us believe that the bombers used a simple digital timer, deliberately set for 7pm. To attack a flight that couldn't have taken off before about 6.15pm, and wasn't scheduled to land until 01.40am the next day.

Now I've pointed out several times that this was crazy in that the plane could still have been on the tarmac at 7pm, for all sorts of reasons. It was very nearly delayed because a passenger with loaded luggage was a no-show at the gate, but they decided not to risk losing their slot after all. An explosion on the tarmac would have been a damp squib of course.

But there's another reason it was crazy. With no control over the positioning of the suitcase, there must have been a significant chance that an explosion at cruising altitude might not have caused the comprehensive break-up that actually happened. In that case, why choose a time for the explosion when the flight would have been within practical reach of a major airport for an emergency landing, most probably Prestwick? When setting the timer for about midnight would ensure it was way out over the Atlantic and even a controlled ditching would be in the sea?

The more you think about it, the sillier it gets.

Rolfe.
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Last edited by Rolfe; 1st September 2010 at 02:29 PM.
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Old 2nd September 2010, 02:10 AM   #118
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Didn't he [Parkes] just say there was a second explosion? Did he specify that the first one was also not in a suitcase?

Unless I'm getting my CTs mixed up here, Parkes is the proponent of the "PA103 was an accident" school of thought. I don't think he's proposing there were two explosions. In essence, the suggestion is that the plane was being used illegally to transport military ordnance of a specific type, and this "flechette" bomb was accidentally triggered by the FM radio signal from ATC Shanwick, to whom PA103 was talking at the time of the explosion.

He bases this on the fact that one area of the debris field was scattered with sewing-machine needles, which were part of the plane's cargo (he thinks these were flechettes), and on an isolated observation he thinks he made of the injuries to a particular girl on the plane. The pathologist however thinks these were gravel burns caused when her body landed.

I think this CT is even madder than Charles's, because it postulates that a huge and complicated cover-up exercise was immediately launched to plant evidence suggesting the crash was caused by a terrorist bomb - when he thinks it was caused by an accident nobody could have anticipated. And yet this fabricated evidence started being found as early as three days after the crash.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
I sector mostly, a bit in H and K.

As I said, all over the place. Charles needs to get this idea of an identifiable suitcase being found right out of his head. How much of the suitcase do you think was actually recovered in the end? I'd estimate less than 10% by weight at a guess.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
I'm not sure where that was found either, but they cut it open to remove something. Evidence things were being planted at the time?

The legend is that McKee's suitcase was found by CIA officers soon after the crash, and removed. A hole was cut in the side. I can't remember whether it was said to have been emptied or not. It was later replaced on the spot where it was originally found, for the legitimate searchers to discover.

Johnston hasn't said much about this for a long time. It was one of the points specifically rejected by the SCCRC, which said there was no evidence anything of the sort had happened. I'm not so sure, because the story was originally quite well attested-to, and it could easily have been covered up in the intervening 15 years.

I think it's quite possible McKee was carrying sensitive documents or other material in that suitcase, material the CIA would really, really prefer not to be found by the official Scottish searchers. That being so, Charles's suggestion that there was some sort of tracking device in the suitcase isn't entirely implausible - possibly incorporated in the structure of the case itself, hence the need to cut a piece out of the case to remove it. That would explain its being found so quickly by the US personnel.

So they located the case, retrieved it, cut out the tracking device and removed whatever sensitive material they wanted to remove, and then replaced the case to be officially "found". A reporter found out about this, and somebody over-reacted in the heat of the moment. The reporter had a very peculiar visit from some very aerated policemen. He ignored this and never heard anything about it again. Because cooler reflection obviously dictates that it's far better to pretend this didn't happen than to escalate the incident.

I just don't see that this need have anything at all to do with the actual explosion.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
You decry the "ignorance" of posters here. Said ignorance is of your theory. You are now a member here. If you don't explain your theory and its supports clearly, who is to blame for that ignorance? Who else is supposed to explain it for you?

I rather think Charles is attacking the alleged "ignorance" of others to cover up his own ignorance. Here's what he won the July Stundies for, at a canter.

Originally Posted by Charles
It is interesting that Rolfe asks for more facts. In my opinion facts is just what we don't need, as they are likely to be misleading or simply a distraction.

He seems to have spent far more time free-associating or brainstorming about this, than actually studying the evidence. Hence, after allegedly having studied the case for 20 years, he knows less about it than those of us who haven't studied it for 20 months.

Intriguing ideas are all very well, and I've had my share of them in relation to this case, but if you come up with a concrete fact that contradicts the idea, the idea has to go. That's what Charles hasn't yet learned.

Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Here are some questions you could address:

- Reasons why the CIA felt the bombing had to succeed.
- How two debris trails = two bombs
- How anything else = two bombs
- What exactly the original cover-up was to be, with its early clues pointing both to Malta and London origin
- Is there anything in your original theory that you're starting to re-think yet? Do you do re-thinking?

Don't hold your breath. I'd settle initially for being given the source for his claim that AVE4041 held only first-class luggage (and Karen Noonan's suitcase!), as I'm interested in any information that's to be had about the contents and loading of the container. He hasn't even come back with that one.

Rolfe.
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Old 2nd September 2010, 03:16 AM   #119
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Rolfe, there is no point in trying to discuss things with you, until you tell us exactly what is your theory of what went on.

You are unwilling to do the basic reading (which I have done, and you have not). You seem to have a short fuse and a low incredulity level. I don't know where you believe the device was introduced or when. Such little things matter you know. I don't know whether you believe in the Bedford story (and his telling of it or not). I'm not certain why the Bedford story was introduced at the trial as it appears to fly in the face of what is the Crown's contention that a timer bomb was flown without difficulty from Luqa to London via Frankfurt having been labelled there with one of Mr Fhimah's famous tags. If that is so surely it would have been transferred on the tarmac at Heathrow when 103A arrived at 17:40? So what is Bedford describing as the two rogue suitcases. Mr Kamboj had no recollection of them. It is Kamboj's word versus Bedford's and he had taken part in a reconstruction with the Met police, a reconstruction that may have influenced his recollection. If you notice it is nowadays not standard police procedure to have recosnstructions as it can induce a false recollection syndrome.

It is general held that AVE4041 PA held the first class baggage (first off at JFK).

Rolfe you are a very difficult woman of fixed but unclear views, who loves to wallow in unclear detail, is prepared to blog but not to slog, and I have come to hold your views in contempt. Such a pity when you are quite capable of being a creative imaginative think.
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Old 2nd September 2010, 03:21 AM   #120
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Rolfe, if you follow my thesis, that an Iranian by the needs of qesas had to plant the first device, or no qesas, it was probably done to a IA plan. The main point of the first explosion was to turn the radr transponder off and damage the pressure hull with a relatively small 15 by 15 inch hold, which had been 8 by 8 at the exit from the container
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