The Pan Am Bomber

A Cascade of Errors

David C. Stolinsky, MD
July 12, 2010

Everyone makes mistakes. But not everyone makes a whole series of mistakes, each of which builds on the previous one, until we are inundated in a cascade of errors.

On December 21, 1988 Pan Am Flight 103, a Boeing 747, took off from London’s Heathrow Airport, bound for JFK in New York. Many people were going home for Christmas. Among them were 35 students from Syracuse University. The plane had received passengers and luggage from a feeder flight originating in Frankfurt, Germany. It is believed that the bomb was located in luggage from this feeder flight, which was loaded onto the 747 without further checking.

The plane blew apart in the air and fell in pieces on the village of Lockerbie, Scotland. A total of 270 human beings died, including 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 residents of Lockerbie. There were no survivors, though one flight attendant was alive when discovered but died shortly thereafter.

The terror of those last moments is indescribable, but in a feeble attempt to describe it, I offer this from Wikipedia:

The explosion knocked out the power, plunging the passenger cabin into darkness…[W]hen 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 −46º C (−51º F), their 31,000-foot (9,400 m) fall…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…told Scottish police he believed the flight crew, some of the flight attendants, and 147 other passengers survived the bomb blast and depressurization of the aircraft, and may have been alive on impact. [Emphasis added.]

After a three-year investigation by American and British authorities, indictments were issued for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, and another Libyan. But for eight years Libyan dictator Col. Gaddafi refused to turn them over. He finally did in 1999, and in 2001 Megrahi was sentenced to 27 years in prison, while the other man was acquitted.

Megrahi developed prostate cancer, and “experts” declared that he was “terminal” and would die in three months. He was released from prison on “compassionate” grounds, after serving only 8½ years. I leave it to you to calculate how much time he served for each of the 270 deaths. He returned home to Libya, flown in a private jet and accompanied by Gaddafi’s son, and was greeted as a hero by cheering crowds.

A year later, he is still alive. The same doctor now says he may live another 10 years. So we have a cascade of errors:

● Why did we wait eight years for a mentally unstable dictator to turn over Megrahi? When Gaddafi refused repeatedly, why did we not send in Special Forces to kill the bomber? Have you been following the outstanding results of long-range snipers? If we were not allowed to bring him to justice, why did we not bring justice to him?

Or why did we not drop a bomb on the building where he was staying? Those who harbor mass murderers − and cheer them as heroes − are accomplices, and deserve the same fate as those who cheered Nazi mass murderers.

Instead, we did nothing. Scores of films and novels pretend that the CIA employs assassins resembling Jason Bourne in cold-blooded efficiency. But the reality is that we let Taliban chief Mullah Omar escape on the first night of the Afghanistan war, because we didn’t want to bomb the mosque where he was − and he still roams free. The reality is that Bin Laden probably is alive almost nine years after 9/11. And the reality is that the Pan Am bomber lived in Libya for eight years while we did nothing, and we are still doing nothing. Perhaps we should make a film titled “The Bourne Baloney.”

● When Megrahi was finally turned over, why was he not taken to the United States, tried and executed? The dead included 190 Americans − that surely made it our business. Does keeping a murderer alive show “compassion”? Or does it show contempt for human life, and contempt for Him Who made it in His image? We give a more severe penalty to someone who steals a diamond ring than to someone who steals a pair of sox. We demonstrate our evaluation of what was taken by the severity of the punishment. By imposing a light penalty for murder, we show our disrespect for human life − and we make murder more likely.

● Why did not the British sentence him to be hanged? Yes, the U.K. abolished the death penalty. But why do we show compassion for the murderer, but not for the victim, not for the victim’s survivors, and not for potential future victims? Why do we squander our compassion on those who don’t deserve it, leaving none for those who do?

● And even when we forego the death penalty, why can’t we sentence a horrible murderer to life imprisonment? Is 27 years a sentence commensurate with 270 murders? What formula did the judges use − 10 murders per one year in prison? Do they sentence an ordinary murderer to 36 days?

● But even then, why do we seek excuses to release the murderer well before his sentence is completed? Suppose he really was near death? Why do we feel that dying in prison is too cruel for him? Innocent people die in the street or at work. Heroic people die in combat. What’s wrong with dying in a prison hospital, in a warm bed, surrounded by nurses and doctors?

● And if we must seek excuses for early release, why can’t we at least seek excuses based on fact instead of opinion? Estimates of survival from serious illnesses are notoriously inaccurate. During my training, I saw a young man with a cancer growing so rapidly that my professors expected him to die in days. But they recommended vigorous therapy. The man went on to be cured, finish college, get married and father a normal child. If we had given up, we never would have discovered our mistake − and we would have made the same mistake again and again.

● Still, if we must base decisions on subjective estimates by “experts,” why can’t we at least make sure that the “expert” does not have an ulterior motive? The same doctor who secured the bomber’s release by estimating his survival at three months now says the man may live 10 years. He increased his estimate 40-fold in the absence of any new data I am aware of.

If the “experts” have empathy for a mass murderer, they declare him “terminal” so he can be released from prison. But if the “experts” have no empathy for you, they will declare you “terminal” and stop your medical treatment. Recall President Obama’s opinion of cardiac pacemakers for the elderly: “If we’ve got experts that are advising doctors that the pacemaker will save money...” “Experts” do as they please unless we ordinary people take charge, as our Founders intended us to do.

As a result of this cascade of errors, the murderer of 270 human beings is living out his life in his homeland, surrounded by admirers. Doesn’t that make you proud to be a member of the human race?

It is unfortunate that Megrahi is a mass murderer instead of an innocent patient. Then, with an estimated survival of three months, his water and food might have been cut off, and he would have died in a week or two. After all, that is “peaceful, even pleasant,” the way it was for Terri Schiavo. At least that’s what the “experts” told us.

The case of the Pan Am Bomber is a striking illustration of the proverb: He who is kind to the cruel will in the end be cruel to the kind.

Dr. Stolinsky writes on political and social issues. Contact: dstol@prodigy.net.

www.stolinsky.com