Lockerbie, Scotland

On December 21, 1988, a bomb was detonated in flight Pan Am 103 as it flew over Scotland, soon after taking off from Heathrow, bound for JFK airport.  It was six miles in the air over Lockerbie and its pieces, as it disintegrated, took three minutes to hit the ground.  Can you imagine the terror of those three minutes for those who survived the bomb itself (and the investigation found that some passengers likely did survive the explosion)?  Major pieces fell in and around Lockerbie.  Eleven people on the ground were killed along with 259 passengers and crew.  Here’s an aerial shot showing the major impacts (except for the marker on the left side which is for the memorial garden that was created). 

Here’s a picture of a crater in one neighborhood where the fuselage hit. 

Here’s the memorial – a block with all the names of the victims listed.

Additionally, individual memorials have been placed on the surrounding walls and ground.

As you know, a Libyan man was convicted in a Scottish court of bombing Flight 103 and sentenced to life imprisonment, but he was given a “compassion” release a couple of years ago (to great outcry), supposedly near death then, but is still alive in Libya (though current medical reports after the rebel takeover of Libya say he is again near death, or maybe not – I haven’t been keeping up closely).

Anyhow, being here gave us much more of a feeling about what happened than we’d had from afar.  We’re glad we came and paused to remember those who died here at the hands of Islamic terrorism.

Coming back to the LakeDistrict, we first stopped to create this piece of evidence that we had legitimately added Scottland to our BeenThere list.

Then, we angled SW to the coast at Marytown.  Had some excellent take-away fish and chips. 

There are some large windfarms in this area, on land and at sea.  

From there we took the mountain back road to Keswick, over rugged Honister Pass.  The sign said portions of that road had a 25% incline.  Pretty exciting drive. We were often amazed at the walls people built in such mountainous terrain.

 Back in Keswick, we picked up our laundry (which we had dropped off on the way out of town in the morning) and headed for the south end of the Lake District.  Saw a B and B with a Vacancy sign and took it – very nice place with level floors and within walking distance of the town centre, where we found a very nice dinner.  Not at all like that other place.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob