Disintegration of aircraft
The explosion punched a 20-inch-wide hole on the left side of the fuselage, almost directly under the 'P' in Pan Am. The disintegration of the aircraft was rapid....
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. These Mach stem waves pulsing through the ductwork bounced off overhead luggage racks and other hard surfaces, jolting the passengers. A section of the 747's roof several feet above the point of detonation peeled away....
Then the whole front section of the aircraft, containing the flight deck with crew and the first class section, broke away altogether.... When the fuselage disintegrated the cabin depressurised to a quarter of ground-level pressure, leaving the passengers fighting for breath. Because of the sudden change in air pressure, the gases inside the passengers' bodies would have expanded to four times their normal volume, causing their lungs to swell and then collapse.
The explosion knocked out the power plunging the passenger cabin into darkness. A Scottish Fatal Accident Inquiry, which opened on 1 October 1990, heard that, when the cockpit broke off, the fuselage was now an open cylinder. Tornado-force winds tore up the aisles slamming into the chest making it even more difficult to breathe and stripping the clothes off the passengers. Some were thrown to the rear. Other people and objects not fixed down were blown out of the aircraft into the night at temperatures of -46 °C, their 31,000-foot fall through the night time troposphere lasting about two minutes. Some passengers remained attached to the fuselage by their seat belts, crashing to earth strapped to their seats.
Although the passengers would have lost consciousness through lack of oxygen, forensic examiners believe some of them might have regained consciousness as they fell toward oxygen-rich lower altitudes. Forensic pathologist Dr William G. Eckert, director of the Milton Helpern International Center of Forensic Sciences at Wichita State University, who examined the autopsy evidence, told Scottish police he believed the flight crew, some of the flight attendants, and 147 other passengers survived the bomb blast and depressurisation of the aircraft, and may have been alive on impact. None of these passengers showed signs of injury from the explosion itself, or from the decompression and disintegration of the aircraft. Forensic tests on some of the bodies suggested that their heartbeats may have continued after the explosion, and David McMullon, a helicopter pilot who was involved in the search for bodies, claimed to have found one victim who was clutching a handful of grass....
The resultant fireball destroyed several houses and was so intense that little remained of the left wing of the aircraft. No remains were ever found of any of the passengers who were seated over this section of the wing....
All 243 passengers and 16 crew members were killed. Eleven residents of Lockerbie also died. Of the total of 270 fatalities, 190 were American citizens. The 270 victims of the bombing came from 21 countries.
Dr Eckert told Scottish police that distinctive marks on Captain MacQuarrie's thumb suggested he had been hanging onto the yoke of the plane as it descended, and may have been alive when the plane crashed. The captain, first officer, flight engineer, a flight attendant and a number of first-class passengers were found still strapped to their seats inside the nose section when it crashed in a field by a tiny church in the village of Tundergarth. The inquest heard that the flight attendant was alive when found by a farmer's wife, but died before her rescuer could summon help....
Four members of one family, Jack and Rosalind Somerville and their children Paul and Lynsey, died when their house at 15 Sherwood Crescent exploded.
Kathleen Flannigan,41, Thomas Flannigan,44, and their daughter Joanne,10, were killed by the explosion in their house 16 Sherwood Crescent. Their son Steven, 14, saw the fireball engulf his home from a neighbour's garage where he had gone to repair his sister's bicycle....
For many days, Lockerbie residents lived with the sight of bodies in their gardens and in the streets....
Local resident Bunty Galloway told authors Geraldine Sheridan and Thomas Kenning... "Two more girls were lying dead across the road, one of them bent over garden railings. It was just as though they were sleeping. The boy lay at the bottom of my stairs for days. Every time I came back to my house for clothes he was still there. 'My boy is still there,' I used to tell the waiting policeman. Eventually on Saturday I couldn't take it no more. 'You got to get my boy lifted,' I told the policeman. That night he was moved"....
The people of the town washed, dried, and ironed every piece of clothing that was found once the police had determined they were of no forensic value, so that as many items as possible could be returned to the relatives....
Post a Comment