Talk:Pan Am Flight 103

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[edit] Faked Evidence

In the last days of August 2007 news agencies reported that a key witness, Ulrich Lumpert has confessed under oath that he has supplied a timer which apparently has been planted as evidence on the Lockerbie site. He also admitted having lied to the court.91.92.179.156 17:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this has already been reported also on Wikipedia - see, for example, Ulrich Lumpert.Phase4 22:18, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How many more sources?

A "more sources" tag has been added to the article today by HisSpaceResearch. By my calculations, the Pan Am Flight 103 article already has:

  • 46 inline references;
  • 52 sources;
  • 6 further reading suggestions; and,
  • 15 external links.

That's apart from the 3 sub-articles:

with all their additional references and sources. HisSpaceResearch should explain here why "more sources" are required. Meantime, I'm removing the tag.Phase4 15:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article misleads readers

This article as it stands now, still suggests to reader that Gadhafi's Libya did it. This is factually proven wrong!

The EU is now in posession of a photocopy of the formal "letter or marque and reprise" signed by the Islamic Republic of Iran tasking the palestinian "Black September" organization with avenging the 290 dead of the iranian civilian Airbus that was downed by the US Navy warship Vincennes. (Iran was legal to do so, based on the retaliatory articles of 1928's International Treaty on Aerial Warfare, since USA refused to admit responsibility and pay compenations for the pilgrim Airbus at the time.)

Anyhow, the lot of Lockerbie trial money paid by Libya under duress has since been returned to Gadhafi via the bulgarian nurse liberation deal and the imprisoned libyan agents will be released before 2008.

Therefore the article is wrong to present its readers with a "Libya did it" message. Libya was framed because it was a relatively weak military state, while Iran is a big army country and also Khomeini had solid legal basis to blow up the Pan-Am 747 in exchange for their Airbus, so the west couldn't formally accuse them. 81.0.68.145 22:26, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

If indeed the EU does hold a photocopy of a letter saying that Iran ordered the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, then no doubt the mainstream European media will soon tell us all about it. Meantime, a Libyan Megrahi remains in prison convicted of the bombing. Megrahi's conviction must first be overturned in the Court of Criminal Appeal before Libya can be exonerated, and Iran (or even apartheid South Africa - see South Africa luggage swap theory) can be prosecuted.Phase4 13:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

The word "contradiction" may be too strong; "inconsistent" is closer. The section on the "Helsinki warning" says that a number of people allegedly changed their bookings. The section on the "Missed flight" people says that specific people changed their bookings on the "rumor" that there had been an advance warning -- the warning the previous section told us existed (and was presumably available to intelligence personnel). So maybe the rumor is more about the changed bookings, which may be impossible to confirm, than the warning. Either way it sounds like we aren't reading our own article. --Dhartung | Talk 12:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I've changed the section heading to read: People who didn't travel. This, I hope, resolves Dhartung's perceived dichotomy between "Missed flight" and "Helsinki warning".Phase4 21:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
It requires references/source section cleanup. Looks like a mess to me at the moment. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I've cleaned up the mess a bit by formatting and referencing.Phase4 21:10, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another Contradiction

This article lists the number of survivors of the bombing as 0, but the article on the 7/7 London bombings states that one of those killed was a survivor of the Lockerbie bomb. Does anyone have a source that can confirm one way or the other? Link follows: [[1]]. 212.49.210.37 15:02, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

There were no survivors among the 259 passengers and crew of Pan Am Flight 103. Eleven people were killed in the town of Lockerbie by falling wreckage of the aircraft. I have edited the 7/7 London bombings article to clarify the point, as follows:
  • Helen Jones, 28, a Scottish (London-based) accountant, who had previously escaped death in 1988 when wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 crashed upon Lockerbie. Her family, from Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, said: "Helen will live on in the hearts of her family and her many, many friends".
Thanks for identifying this 'contradiction'.Phase4 16:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:PA103cockpit4.jpg

I have filed a deletion request for the image on Commons, as absolutely no source is given. The arguments by Phase4 for keeping the image are nulled UNLESS he can come up with a source for the image and (if it is copyrighted, and it likely is) re-upload the image to EN according to the proper copyright. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:35, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This is all conspiratorial stuff. I have disputed your nomination for deletion.Phase4 (talk) 22:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
What do you mean "This is all conspiratorial stuff." ? The image doesn't have a source, and unsourced images go. Anyway, the first edit, actually, was to prevent a duplication of the same image twice ([2]). The image may be reuploaded to EN (With a source, preferably) WhisperToMe (talk) 22:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
So how do you explain your other three edits to the article on 25 November 2007?Phase4 (talk) 23:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

As for the other three:

  • [3] was a change from "People who didn't travel" to "People who did not travel on Pan Am Flight 103" - We use formal English on Wikipedia, and contractions are casual English.
  • [4] - The phrase "The alleged cancellation of tickets by high-profile passengers later fuelled rumours that intelligence agencies had advance warning of the bombing." has no source. You need to have a source in order for the statement to stay. What news agencies reported on this? Remember Wikipedia:Cite your sources WhisperToMe (talk) 23:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
  • [5] - A UN official died on the flight, so the flight is added to Category:UN - This is the same reason for why the UN category was added to Swissair Flight 111

WhisperToMe (talk) 23:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Good explanations: I'm impressed.Phase4 (talk) 23:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, once the PA103cockpit4.jpg is reuploaded, we can have PA103cockpit4.png as the first image and PA103cockpit4.jpg as the second (the "investigators combing wreck" pic) WhisperToMe (talk) 03:50, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nationalities of passengers and crew

What were the nationalities of the passengers and crew of the PA103 crash? WhisperToMe 02:01, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I've read somewhere that 189 of the victims were American citizens. The article says that the total of 270 victims came from 21 countries: names and addresses are recorded here.Phase4 12:44, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I found nationalities here! http://db.mipt.org/documents/Cases/91-CR-645_Indictment.pdf Thank you, as I can stated that X was a resident of Y :) WhisperToMe 21:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC) I also found: http://www.panamair.org/accidents/lockerbievictims.htm - I will use them to make a nationality table (like Aeroperu's) WhisperToMe 21:47, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Anon 67.186.123.200 has edited the 'Nationalities' section incorrectly showing a number of Russian nationals to have been among the passengers and crew of PA103. I've reverted the edit.PJHaseldine (talk) 09:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Phase1 = Phase2 = Phase4 = PJHaseldine = Patrick Haseldine

Please be advised that Phase4 is an alias of Lockerbie conspiracy theorist Patrick Haseldine. Any edits by this user relating to Lockerbie should be examined closely for WP:POV. See talk:Patrick Haseldine for details of this deception. Socrates2008 (Talk) 07:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FAC

Anyone think this article is ready for a FAC? Or near it? --Golbez (talk) 21:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

No, definitely not without a significant amount of work. GA might be more achievable right now, but will still require a fair amount of cleanup work, particularly with regard to citations and conjecture vs fact. Socrates2008 (Talk) 21:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Returning to the "Explosion" paragraph

Having delayed (read: forgotten) my little revision to the "explosion" paragraph of the article for a bit, I finally got around to it. I realise that without the referenced book, it's not quite right for me to have left the sources in the text. However, since I'm not aware of any other sources for these specifics, I've left them in. All that's been done is basically a quick edit of things that simply did not make any sense to anyone in the aviation industry. At any rate, comments and suggestions are of course very welcome. TerminusEst (talk) 17:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Feeder flight PA103A

The latest three edits by anon IP 71.232.115.111 imply that the Clipper Maid of the Seas Jumbo jet originated at Frankfurt International Airport. This is incorrect, as the following extract from the article's 'Flight Plan' section explains:

The first leg of Pan Am Flight 103's journey began as the Boeing 727 feeder flight, PA103A, from Frankfurt International Airport, West Germany to London Heathrow. Forty-seven of the 89 passengers on PA103A transferred at Heathrow to the Boeing 747 flight PA103 which was scheduled to fly to JFK. A Boeing 727 would have been used for the final leg of the journey from JFK to Detroit.

I have therefore reverted those three edits to the last version by Socrates2008.PJHaseldine (talk) 12:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The same anon IP has now edited the flight infobox to record that Pan Am Flight 103 originated at Frankfurt (as PA103A) with a 'stopover' at Heathrow and a 'destination' of JFK. If this edit is to stand, surely consistency requires that JFK should also be described as a 'stopover' since the final leg of the journey to Detroit would have been the actual 'destination'. Or, am I being pedantic?PJHaseldine (talk) 18:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Today's edit by Abarzelay has compounded the error initiated by 71.232.115.111 above. On December 21, 1988 the Boeing 747 Clipper Maid of the Seas arrived at Heathrow at noon from San Francisco - not from Frankfurt, as Abarzelay wrongly edited. As stated above, it was a Boeing 727 that was used as the feeder flight PA103A from Frankfurt to Heathrow. Thus, PA103 (Clipper Maid of the Seas) originated at Heathrow and its destination was JFK. I am therefore reverting Abarzelay's edit, and correcting the crash infobox accordingly.PJHaseldine (talk) 11:54, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Let's see some references - that will end the speculation/edit war very quickly. Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
The most authoritative reference I can find is the Air Accidents Investigation Branch Report- Section 1.1 (History of the Flight).PJHaseldine (talk) 11:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
That's certainly authoritative - are you going to add it to the citations? Socrates2008 (Talk) 14:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
The AAIB report already features as №9 on the list of references. I invite you to convert it into an inline citation, if you think that is appropriate.PJHaseldine (talk) 20:37, 11 April 2008 (UTC)