At around 8.10 PM on the evening of Wednesday 21 December, I had just sat down to watch the Les Dawson Christmas Show on TV when the phone rang. It was the Duty Co-ordinator, one of our Principal Inspectors, whose job it was, on being notified of an air accident, to decide whether the AAIB would respond and, if so, the number of Inspectors to be deployed. I can still recall the deep concern in his voice when he said that he had been informed by Air Traffic Control (ATC) of a Boeing 747 “disappearing from radar somewhere over the Lowther Hills”. He also told me to stand by for further information. I checked the location on my AA roadmap (the sort of time consuming workaround we had to resort to whilst awaiting the arrival of the Internet), discovering it was in Dumfries and Galloway. Sensing a long night ahead I decided for some reason to have a shower. I then started to pack my kit. The TV channels were by now interrupting their programmes to show footage of fierce fires burning in the town of Lockerbie, although there was frustratingly little useful information forthcoming. 

I then took another call, in which I learned the aircraft involved belonged to Pan American World Airways and that it had been operating a scheduled flight, Pan Am 103, from London Heathrow to New York. I was instructed to make my way to Pan Am’s maintenance base at Heathrow, where staff would ensure I boarded a special flight to Carlisle, the nearest airport to Lockerbie. For some reason, possibly because the departure time was imminent, colleagues were asked to go directly to the airport and board this special flight in the normal way. Because of the time pressures, some left their cars in the short-term car parks. On their return, around two weeks later, the charges were in some cases approaching the value of the vehicles. Thankfully the airport authorities waived these fees, recognising that the AAIB response was very much in the public interest and, probably, that they did not want to become the object of hostility by being seen to profit by it. 

Having tucked my car away in the Pan Am staff car park, I met some maintenance engineers, at least two of whom were to accompany our team to Lockerbie. Obviously, we discussed the accident but no one at that point was talking about the possibility of a bomb. I was escorted airside and boarded the aircraft, an elderly Boeing 727, from the apron, as opposed to using the normal air bridge. The cabin was already quite full with some of my AAIB colleagues, Aviation Minister Lord Brabazon, and a number of stewardesses, whose job it would be to deal with relatives of the deceased passengers who were expected to arrive during the following days. The AAIB team comprised three Operations Inspectors, all experienced pilots, who were tasked with examining flight crew records, radar recordings and interviewing witnesses. There were four Engineering Inspectors, including me, who were to make initial assessments of the wreckage scattered around the town and, we were to discover, the surrounding countryside. There was also a colleague who specialised in the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR), popularly known as the Black Boxes (despite the fact they are bright orange in colour). Finally, there was our Investigator in Charge, Mick Charles, who was to lead the AAIB investigation. 

After taking off for Carlisle, the conversation was muted and the atmosphere became tense as we approached our destination. We were almost certain our American pilot had never landed at this somewhat under-used airport before, and we wondered if the runway was even long enough for a Boeing 727. The turbulence became progressively more severe and the captain instructed us to “buckle up real tight as the landing might be hard!” The touchdown was indeed just that, as was the application of the brakes and reverse thrust, with the aircraft stopping alarmingly close to the red stop lights at the end of the runway. Before we disembarked, the captain emerged from the flight deck and noticed I was carrying one of the Branch’s mobile phones. We had half a dozen or so of these new-fangled gadgets at the time and they were issued to those of us at the top of the duty roster, who were designated to be called out on the next accident. They were cumbersome devices, with the battery compartment the size of one and a half house bricks and the handset perched in a cradle on the top. A sturdy carrying strap completed the weighty ensemble, which was something of a pain to have to carry around. The embryonic cellular network meant that they often failed to work in rural areas despite the brain-frying output of the phone’s stumpy aerial, and it was quite an event to either make or receive a call. Anyway, the device came into its own that night when the captain used it to inform his London base that we had arrived safely. The aircraft’s position on the ground had meant that the radio was not able to reach London, nor was the control tower able to relay a message as it was by now after midnight and was unmanned. Fortunately, a couple of coaches had been organised to meet us and we sat in these for about an hour, during which time someone was arranging hotel accommodation. There was very little conversation and many of the stewardesses were crying. It was decided that the Investigator in Charge and one Engineering Inspector would proceed to Lockerbie to establish an AAIB presence, while the rest of us got some sleep before travelling there in the morning. We were eventually delivered to the Crest Hotel in Carlisle at 3:30 am, which did not provide much chance of a good night’s sleep.

I reckon I managed to sleep for not much more than an hour before being compelled to rise and switch on the TV news. It was still dark and we learned very little that was new. As the dawn progressed, we were able to see the extent of the wreckage spread and the destruction around Lockerbie. We ordered some hire cars, which could not be delivered until later in the morning; these were left for the operations guys. Together with our ‘Black Box’ expert, Dick Vance, my engineering colleagues, Rob Carter and Steve Moss, and I squeezed into a taxi for the 40-minute drive to Lockerbie. A grudging dawn had at last allowed the people on site to start to assess the extent of the previous evening’s horrors. During the drive, we were able to listen to our sleep-deprived colleague describe, on Radio 4’s Today programme, what he had seen on a reconnaissance flight in a Royal Air Force (RAF) Sea King helicopter. We were starting to appreciate the vast area that had been affected by the event. As we drove into town, the streets seemed thronged with people and traffic (mostly vehicles from the emergency services), and the road was scattered with small clumps of earth and stones. We also identified the whiff of burnt wreckage and kerosene in the air, grimly familiar to anyone who has ever visited the site of an air crash. We arrived at the Academy to be greeted by scenes of chaos. The place was besieged with police officers; I had never seen so many in one place. I recall being informed that Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary comprised 600 officers and that a disaster such as this would overwhelm them. Therefore, what appeared to be a significant percentage of the 7,000 or so Strathclyde Police had arrived as reinforcements. Most were just milling about waiting to be allocated tasks. We forced our way up a crowded staircase and eventually found our Investigator in Charge looking understandably harassed and surrounded by extremely senior police officers. He had managed to negotiate the use of a room as our operations centre. It was equipped with conference tables and wall boards and was large enough to accommodate the dozens of people from various overseas organisations, in addition to more AAIB personnel, who we knew would be arriving over the following days. 

Here, slightly away from the chaos outside, we learnt something of the scenes that would confront us around the town, the most horrific of which was the fact that dozens of bodies had been released from the aircraft as it fell through the atmosphere, coming to earth over a wide area, including the local golf course and adjacent fields. We also learnt there were four wreckage areas that required an initial assessment. These were: The residential street of Sherwood Crescent, the site of a large crater where several properties had once stood: Rosebank Crescent, another residential area where a large piece of what appeared to be fuselage structure had partly demolished one house and damaged several others: A field near Tundergarth church, some two and a half miles east of Lockerbie, where the aircraft nose section, including the entire cockpit, had come to rest lying on its left side: Finally the falling engines had straddled the town like a stick of bombs. One colleague, Rob Carter, set off to examine these. Steve Moss was taken in a police car to Tundergarth, where he was later joined by Phil Giles, one of our Operations Inspectors. The aircraft nose was eminently recognisable as such and it formed a poignant focus for all the press and television news crews that had assembled in front of the church. Over the days it was lying there, the once circular section of the cockpit structure became a narrow oval shape as it sagged under its own weight. Eventually, timbers had to be brought in to act as pit props in order that the examination of the instruments and controls could safely be completed, as well as to allow the sad recovery of the three flight crew members who had remained at their posts.

Meanwhile, I set off to have a look at Sherwood and Rosebank Crescents, the two locations being only a few hundred yards apart. I had a police constable ‘minder’ with me and, as we approached along Sherwood Crescent, towards what was clearly a massive crater, the enormity of the damage became starkly apparent. Houses some distance away had been pock-marked by flying debris, with broken windows and missing roof tiles. Closer to the crater, roofs were partially or totally missing, with collapsed walls exposing the shattered interiors which, only hours earlier, had been places of innocent domesticity. There was an overturned chair here, a ruined television set there, a picture at a drunken angle on a wall, a pathetic remnant of Christmas tinsel that provided the only flash of colour in what appeared to me to be an entirely monochrome scene. Yes, it was a dull day but, everywhere I looked was reminiscent of grainy, black and white photographs of shelled villages on the Western Front during the First World War. We arrived at the edge of the crater, which we learned had obliterated several properties in which 11 people had lost their lives. At first sight, this giant hole appeared to contain little evidence of an aircraft, apart from relatively small, jagged and charred pieces of metal. The constable and I made our tentative entry into the pit, being especially wary of the steep and unstable sides. These days, I must admit, there would be a rather more rigorous health and safety assessment before any of us would be allowed in. Apart from the obvious risk of falling over onto a jagged piece of metal, one had to be aware of any dangerous cargo the aircraft might have been carrying. Later, we received news that the soles of firemen’s boots had been penetrated by hypodermic needles while they were working in a dense area of debris. This was a stark illustration of the kind of safety hazards that need to be managed and explains why it is good practice to obtain a copy of the cargo manifest before ‘diving in’. After a while, I was able to identify pieces of wreckage that appeared to be parts of the interior structure of the wings. There were some heavier pieces of metal, but overall I expected to see much more of the major structure, such as the hefty wing spars. However, an aircraft wings are where the fuel is stored and, so early in the transatlantic flight, most of the load, around 90 tonnes, would have been present at the time of impact. The energy it contained was released in the explosion and fireball, which largely destroyed the wing structure. Having due consideration for the crater dimensions, together with partial identification of a few bits of wreckage, I felt that, for now, I was able to conclude that most, if not all, of the wing had landed at Sherwood Crescent (an airliner does not have two separate wings attached to either side of the fuselage; rather, it is a structural entity from tip to tip, with the fuselage attached to the centre section, or wing box.) 

I returned to the crater with a Pan Am engineer, freshly arrived from the USA. Armed with various manuals we were able to match component part numbers listed therein to those we found on some of the pieces of mangled metal. We were eventually able to confirm that, effectively, all the wing structure was represented in the crater. We also found pieces of the centre section of the fuselage, together with the remains of some seats. At least some of these were likely to have been occupied by passengers. My policeman and I clambered out of the crater and made our way to the A74 road close to the crater in order to look at a couple cars that had been caught in the fireball. Finding nothing much of interest we turned back to the crater. 

At this point I suddenly noticed two figures walking slowly about at its deepest point. One was dressed in a dark trench coat and a black, peaked cap, and looked like a senior police officer. The other wore a white, military looking peaked cap and a green cagoule. Now, Engineering Inspectors have been known to get quite territorial over ‘their’ wreckage sites and like to know that access to them is limited so that potential evidence is not obliterated or contaminated; this why we get the Police to guard them. And of course, the Police need to know whether they are dealing with crime scene, with similar requirements for preservation of evidence. Despite hundreds of officers being deployed around the town, I was mildly annoyed that they had allowed a couple of interlopers, albeit one of them probably a policeman, into ‘my’ site. To be fair, in this case, it was difficult to imagine how anyone, inadvertently or otherwise, could possibly contaminate or obliterate anything in this almighty mess. I scrambled back into the crater and stomped over to them. Green Cagoule looked vaguely familiar to me, but I addressed Trench Coat, whose peaked hat, I noticed, carried a weighty amount of braid that meant nothing to me. I asked him who he was and what was he doing there. I can’t recall his name, but I do remember that he announced himself as the Deputy Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway (although he didn’t tell me what he was doing there!) He then introduced his companion as Prince Andrew, Duke of York. That shut me up. After a moment’s awkwardness (on my part) both of them grinned and we held as civilised a discussion as possible in the bottom of a large hole in the ground. At that time the Duke was a helicopter pilot in the Royal Navy, although I don’t know why he was in Lockerbie that morning. I found that his initial easy grin was but a mask for his generally shocked demeanour, but he eagerly engaged in an aviation-based chat for about ten minutes. 

As we took our leave, I noticed a small crowd of people walking towards us; they were all smartly dressed and therefore, as my policeman remarked, “Unlikely to get stuck in”. I was dressed in by now rather grubby orange waterproofs over bulky winter clothing. I must also have been sensibly wearing an identifying armband, as a police officer in the group got hold of me and introduced me to the man who was the centre of attention. This turned out to be Charles Price, the American Ambassador. He was accompanied by his wife, Carol Swanson, whom I recognised as having featured a few weeks earlier in a Sunday supplement. Although known as a frozen food heiress and a philanthropist, the article was, I dimly remember about her being something of a socialite and a fashion expert. Certainly, she was impeccably, expensively but entirely inappropriately dressed for the occasion, as she picked her way through some of the 1,500 tonnes of earth that were estimated to have emanated from the crater. She and her husband were ashen faced as they surveyed the scene. I provided the Ambassador with much the same spiel as for the Duke of York, after which he moved on, looking very glum. Realising that I wasn’t accomplishing anything useful, I prepared to move on to my next allocated site. 

However, I then observed another entourage coming towards me, at its centre, the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She was closely shadowed by our Chief Inspector of Air Accidents, Don Cooper, who ensured she was introduced to each of his staff as she toured the town. I felt like a tour guide as I dished up my now standard speech on what I believed was responsible for the crater, and then tried to answer her questions on what may have been responsible for the disaster. She moved away to visit other sites, clearly distressed at the scenes she was witnessing. At one point, she reportedly stared at a businessman’s diary, lying in a heap of debris, the light breeze gently flicking over pages that listed past and future, unfillable appointments, and exclaimed, “Why doesn’t somebody do something?” It was a difficult question to answer, but of course it was just an expression of sheer frustration, probably not helped by the sight of dozens of people just standing around, apparently not doing anything. In fact, standing around tends to feature in most accident sites, meaning that air accident investigation is not a spectator sport. Generally, of course, we do not stand perfectly still, but move around, taking photographs and ‘absorbing the scene’. This means taking mental and written notes of marks and gouges on the ground and asking ourselves what part of the aircraft could have been responsible for them; broken branches on any nearby trees, - were they involved in some way; the nature of damage to engines and airframe parts. All this would be fed into the process of divining how an aircraft had arrived at this point, at what speed, structurally intact or in several pieces, under control or otherwise. Any spectator still watching might then see some comparatively frantic activity, such as taking copious photographs, making a site survey (using something as simple as a tape measure, or perhaps some high-tech equipment). There would be then some head scratching to work out how the bits and pieces might be removed, perhaps after some judicious cutting up of larger components. Finally, the wreckage would be taken away, usually to the great relief of local residents or the airport authority, as appropriate. In Lockerbie, the extent of urban devastation, not to mention the huge area of wreckage generated a sense of the task ahead being overwhelming. But in fact, the investigation had already been distilled down to a relatively narrow remit. The aircraft had suffered a structural failure at 31,000 feet; all we had to do was to work out what bit failed first, and why. 

After the PM had gone, my ever-faithful constable turned to me and said “D’you fancy trying to find a cup of tea or shall we hang around to see if the Queen turns up?” A cuppa would have been wonderful as I’d had nothing since leaving the hotel. However, I had already been notified, via my burdensome phone, that I was overdue at the Rosebank site, so I reluctantly took my leave and hurried the short distance across the town. 

Arriving close to the site, I found my way blocked by a couple of kilted soldiers, apparently assisting the police with their cordon. Their accents were strong, making understanding them quite difficult, and they remained stubbornly unimpressed by my identifying armband and warrant card. After further use of the millstone that was my communication device, I was eventually allowed through and I met a Detective Inspector. Here, for me at least, was the grimmest scene I encountered in Lockerbie.

It was clear that a massive section of the rear fuselage had come down, in a nominally upright attitude, on a house at the end of a terrace, causing a partial collapse. Wreckage from the fuselage had spewed across nearby gardens and was in places so thick that the ground was completely covered. This made getting around difficult and in fact dangerous, as there were many sharp edges and the debris was often too slippery on which to confidently plant a booted foot. Worst of all, it was abundantly obvious that dozens of passengers were trapped within the mangled structure. We slipped and tripped our way round the gardens for a while, trying to make sense of it all. Temporary respite from these unpleasant travails was provided by fading daylight; night comes early in these North British latitudes in winter. I duly left the scene and walked back through the town to the Academy. Compared with the morning, some semblance of calm had descended on the place, and I found that some of my colleagues already there, having returned from their initial assessments. There was also a growing band of visitors from overseas, including from Pan Am and Boeing. After finally sorting out some much-needed teas and coffees we convened a meeting during which everyone discussed details of their activities. We then set about deciding what tasks needed to be carried out the following day; in my case this was to return to Rosebank Crescent with Pan Am and Boeing engineers, with a view to quantifying the wreckage. I was no longer responsible for the crater; the detailed examination of this was handed over to a colleague, who had just arrived, along with additional reinforcements, from our Farnborough base. After cadging a lift in one of the hire cars, I returned to the hotel at Carlisle where, after a quick meal, I collapsed gratefully into a deep slumber.

Those of us in the Carlisle hotel moved out after three nights to join our colleagues, including the pathologists, RAF officers and some overseas investigators. Hotel accommodation for such a large influx of people was hard to find around Lockerbie. However, the Auchen Castle Hotel near Moffat, which was closed for the holiday period, had been persuaded to open its doors for us. This was on a room only basis; no food was available but a laundry service was provided. Plus, rather astutely I thought, the bar was opened each evening when it did a roaring trade. The building itself was substantial and apparently imposing, with a couple of towers and turrets. I say apparently as the only time I got to see the place in daylight was on New Year’s Day when we were allowed to delay the start of work until 11:30 am. In the event I found even this deadline a bit tight, and I rushed out without really taking stock of my surroundings! Our landlord was actually quite thoughtful. When we retired to our rooms on Christmas Eve, we each found a small bottle of whisky wrapped in Christmas paper outside our doors. Otherwise, our daily routine now consisted of an early drive down the A74 to the Lockerbie Academy where we had breakfast. 

The canteen there was staffed by the Women’s Royal Service (WRVS), since renamed the Royal Voluntary Service (RVS) in 2013. After any morning briefings, we discussed the day’s plans with those members of other agencies with whom we were to work that day before revisiting the canteen. We all took rucksacks with us each day; these would contain the likes of wreckage gloves, evidence bags, camera and film supplies (remember, this was the pre-digital age!), and perhaps a spare sweater. Any remaining space would be crammed with pies, cakes, confectionary, and soft drinks. Thus provisioned, we would then set off on our day’s work. 

Early in the investigation the AAIB had hired a helicopter to specifically search the outlying areas to establish the quantity and extent of the (mostly) lighter debris. This was found to extend approximately 26 miles east of Lockerbie. The area was divided up into sectors, with AAIB-led teams going in on foot to attempt to identify the parts of the aircraft from which the debris originated. The team would include an RAF NCO who would assess whether any cutting up of a large item of wreckage was required in order to render it transportable, together with its location with regard to other debris. The eventual recovery would be achieved by using as much RAF manpower as was available to drag the wreckage in a particular zone into a pile using all-terrain vehicles where possible. If this were not possible, the wreckage would be rolled into a cargo net and lifted out by an RAF helicopter then taken to a collection point. It must be said that this level of assistance from the RAF was unusual, but it had come about after a governmental declaration of ‘Military Aid to the Civil Power’. 

An early start the following morning had us arrive at the Academy before daylight. As there was no point in going on-site until it was light enough to work safely, we held more meetings with Mick Charles and some police officers with whom we were to work closely. The two American engineers had brought some drawings of the appropriate structural parts, and we pored over these for a while. I then did something I did every day until I departed for home, which was to apply dubbin to my boots. I had long ago learned that your day “in the field” can be so easily ruined by wet, blistered, cold or simply uncomfortable feet. Warm socks and decent, well-maintained boots are generally simply met requirements, although the density of the wreckage on the Rosebank site tended to shred the leather of my boots. After arriving at Rosebank Crescent, the Americans and I started the task of establishing precisely what the wreckage comprised. Every fuselage frame and floor beam had its own identifying number, but the ones at the front and rear of the fuselage section were badly damaged, making the job far from straightforward. Another problem was that the body recovery teams were, unfortunately, very busy. We had to step aside while they performed their grisly task. 

During one of these breaks, the Americans and I took a walk around the town to look at the where the engines had landed. Three of them had landed harmlessly, away from buildings or people. However, the No 3 engine (from the inboard position on the right wing) had come down in a residential road, and therefore perilously close to the rows of houses on either side. A Pratt and Whitney JT9D turbofan is a dense, heavy object; and it had dropped vertically, tail first, making a hole so deep that the front face of the engine was below the surface of the road. A telecom cable duct and a water main were undamaged. Unfortunately, the engine had scored a direct hit on a sewer, much to the chagrin of the RAF guys who eventually had to dig the thing out! During that evening’s meeting, I got what was just about the only laugh of the entire campaign when I wondered out loud if this was the first case of the fan hitting the s***! 

Back on site, we continued to establish the structural extent of our chunk of fuselage, including the sheet metal skin over the crown (roof). All this information was used to “colour in” the areas of identified aircraft parts onto drawings and on a large plastic model of a Boeing 747. This enabled us to determine what we had and what we were still missing.

Back at the Academy that evening, the number of participants in the meeting had swollen. The international protocols that deal with air accident investigation allow the investigators in the state of occurrence (the UK in this case) to be joined by the investigation authorities from the states of manufacture and registration (the USA on both counts here). There was thus a large contingent from the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB). In turn, they can appoint advisors from the aircraft and engine manufacturers — hence the appearance of Boeing and Pratt and Whitney people. In addition, because of a general wish to share the knowledge and experience gained in a major investigation, there were investigators from the Canadian and French authorities. Also present were RAF officers who were there primarily to liaise with us over the cutting up, collection and eventual removal of the aircraft wreckage. In fact the AAIB had for many years enjoyed a close working relationship with the RAF. We supplied engineering expertise in the analysis of wreckage arising from their accidents with the quid quo pro being that they provided manpower and equipment for the recovery of (generally more lightweight) aircraft wreckage from our more ‘run of the mill’ accidents across the UK. At that time the Aircraft Transport and Recovery Flight, or “Smash ‘n’ Crash”, as they were more commonly known, were based at Abingdon. They were deployed to Lockerbie en masse, but it was necessary for their numbers to be supplemented by personnel from all over the air force in order for them to cope with this mammoth task. RAF pathologists were also present, although they seldom attended the meetings. We would await word of any meaningful findings from them, such as evidence of wounds, debris or apparent blast damage in the victims, which might have originated from an on-board bomb. Other attendees included a couple of metallurgists from the Royal Aerospace Establishment at Farnborough (now part of QinetiQ) with whom we had worked on numerous occasions. They would come out on site with us and comment on any fractures we found that looked in any way suspicious. Also present were two scientists, with expertise in the field of explosives, from Fort Halstead in Kent. (The Royal Artillery Research and Development Establishment is now known as Defence Science and Technology Ltd, or DSTL). Finally, and most unusually, the guest list included several members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which indicated the way some folk in international circles were thinking. I’m not sure what they did all day and I don’t recall having meaningful conversations with any of them. 

After another long meeting and a short night, we were back at Rosebank Crescent again early next morning to continue the examination of the fuselage. In fact we were there for the next two days, the last being Christmas day. 

The RAF were there in force using a small mobile crane and disc cutters to delicately dismantle parts of the fuselage prior to removal. This was supervised by me, in case it was deemed necessary to reconstruct it at a later date, meaning all the removed pieces had to be retained with the main wreckage. The lighter debris was also being brought in from the surrounding properties and added to a growing pile on a rectangular, grassed play area nearby. Throughout all this, the body recovery activities continued unabated which, together with the dull day and showery conditions, made for a depressing period. The Smash ‘n’ Crash lads were well known for their banter and robust ‘military’ humour, but there was none of it that day. They worked in silence, just anxious to get the job done, or more immediately, adjourn to a pub. We were all grateful when the light faded and could escape to the relative sanity of the Academy. 

However, there was one event that really cheered us up and reminded us that local residents were attempting to live normal lives within yards of us grubbing about in wreckage. After driving to Rosebank on what was a very wet morning, I parked in the road by the grassed play area. I switched off the engine and no one immediately moved or said anything; there was only the sound of the rain drumming on the roof. Suddenly there was knock on the window. I wound it down and saw a woman wearing one of those pleated clear plastic head scarves tied under the chin. Locks of hair protruded from the top and sides and had become plastered to her face. “There’s tea and cake at Number 15 whenever you’re ready,” she said. I thanked her, and then she was gone. Her appearance had the effect of shaking us out of our inertia and we got out of the car and went to work. During the morning, the rain seemed to get heavier; and during a halt for body recovery, I asked the Americans if they thought the woman’s offer was genuine. They were keen to give it a try, so we scrambled over the ruined gardens of a couple of houses before arriving at a door with no number. In fact, none of us could even remember if “15” was correct. I knocked anyway and the door was opened by a woman wearing what I thought was a severe expression. Her hair was dry and she wasn’t wearing a clear plastic head scarf; I therefore had no way of knowing if she was the woman by the car. “Er, we were told there was tea and cake at Number 15”, I cautiously ventured. She immediately scowled and put her hands on her hips. “That’ll be my bloody sister!” she said, sounding most displeased. We immediately started back-pedalling and muttering apologies. Her face then creased into a broad grin and she beckoned at us saying, “Ye’ll all come in.”  It was an order rather than an invitation. We obeyed and then huddled in the doorway as we started to remove our boots which had about five times their own weight of thick mud on them. We were immediately instructed to keep them on. We attempted to put up a robust argument about this but were forced, once again, to obey although we barely moved around once inside. While tea and coffee were being prepared in this warm, dry and happy kitchen, we chatted to our host and another woman who did not reveal herself as having spoken to us in the car. So, I remained confused as to whether in fact we had ended up at the correct house. A couple of children were briefly in evidence enjoying the Christmas holidays despite everything. A large slice of cake, which was wolfed down with enthusiasm, was thrust upon each of us. 

One of the Americans, a young guy of about six foot four, enquired: “Say Ma’am, this sure is great cake. Is it home-made?” The woman, at least a foot shorter, picked up the large knife which she had used to cut the cake and gently placed the point against the skin under his chin. “Young man,” she hissed exaggerating her accent, “there’s nothing in this hoose that’s nae hame-made!” We left the house with our spirits lifted. This kind act of hospitality having transformed our day. I am forever grateful to that family, although I have often wondered if they ever managed to clean the muck off the kitchen floor!

By the end of Christmas Day, we were largely finished with the site at Rosebank, although I had to make a couple of later visits to attend to wreckage recovery issues. We had concluded that the piece of fuselage had been 60 feet long before being compressed and distorted by its violent impact with the house. This equated to one body recovered from this site for every foot of fuselage. Also contained within it were three of the four main undercarriages together with much of the heavy beams that attached them to the wing and fuselage. Several cargo pallets, baggage containers and their contents had contributed to the considerable weight of this part of the aircraft. This explained the massive damage caused when it impacted the house. 

During the afternoon of Christmas Day, I met a doctor who lived locally. He had been placed on standby to go to a local hospital on the night of the disaster in anticipation of injured survivors who would require emergency surgery. Of course there had been none; and although there had been eleven fatalities on the ground, there were only two people who had suffered serious injuries. He kindly invited me to Christmas dinner at his house that evening. I would have welcomed the opportunity to have some time away from chatting about the job with my colleagues; unfortunately, there was a three-line whip on the evening meeting, so I had to turn him down. I very much appreciated the gesture, however.

On Boxing Day I was given the job of taking a small team into Sector G. A police van dropped us off in an area of open country, and after consulting my map, we attempted as systematic a survey as possible. The gently rolling hills and wide open views made spotting any concentrations of wreckage reasonably easy, although small copses, larger plantations and hedgerows required closer scrutiny. The helicopter surveys and high-resolution photographs from RAF reconnaissance flights provided a steer to some of the debris that we could go to and hopefully identify. It actually felt refreshing to be walking briskly in the fresh air away from the depressing urban sites. The weather had brightened up too, with periods of sunshine helping to lift our spirits.

After an hour or so, we came across a large piece of a suitcase. Its brown, imitation leather exterior was streaked with what appeared to be soot, which did not accord with an aircraft structural failure arising from an undetected weakness, as that in itself would be unlikely to cause a fire that could affect the baggage containers. Obviously, this became an item of interest, worthy of a thorough examination. The problem was that we could not simply pick it up and take it back to base. Finding my bloody phone useless once again, we called on an individual from another volunteer organisation, Raynet, who was on our team. Raynet was (and I was surprised to find, still is, despite the ubiquity of smartphones) a group of licensed radio amateurs who provided a communications service to the community. They were set up after severe flooding caused a large loss of life and widespread damage along England’s east coast in 1953. Using a hand-held radio, our man was able to relay a message back to our Lockerbie base, which resulted in a policeman arriving some 15 minutes later. He bagged and tagged the piece of suitcase so that there was a record of when and where it was found and who found it. 

After signing it, the item was taken back to Lockerbie where it was properly secured by the police. If all this seems a bit of a palaver, it must be appreciated that this was potential evidence and as such formed a Scottish Police 'production' that could be used in a future prosecution. It was therefore necessary to ensure continuity of that evidence as it was moved around, examined, dissected or subjected to any other procedure. This was to demonstrate that there was no possibility of interference or contamination that could otherwise be seized upon by a defence lawyer. We carried on for a while, locating lumps of wreckage, identifying them where possible and marking them with a grid reference. 

Unfortunately, the weather deteriorated and a thick blanket of mist descended on our part of the landscape, which effectively meant the end of our search activity for the day. We had started to walk along a track towards the nearest road when we heard the unmistakable drone of a helicopter. 

After a few minutes, we were surprised to see a small, civil registered helicopter loom out of the fog and slowly creep along a descending flight path until it gently landed on the track, which we noted was crossed by an electrical power line a short distance ahead of it. We were standing directly behind the machine and therefore not visible to the occupants. After a few moments it took off again, becoming lost in the mist once more, the noise quickly fading. We were very relieved as we all knew that helicopters in association with low level flight, power lines and fog could be most detrimental to flight safety. We discovered later that one of my colleagues was a passenger in the helicopter and that he and the pilot knew 'exactly' where they were; but they decided to land just to check! The fog bank was apparently quite shallow, small in area, with clear air being found within a short time of taking off again. That night, our landlord at the Auchen Castle Hotel very kindly called in his restaurant staff, who served us poached salmon for dinner. 

The weather was fine the next morning, and we carried on with our search. One of the first pieces of wreckage we found was another suitcase fragment, very similar to the one we’d found the previous day and which we thought probably came from the same suitcase. It was apparent that other teams were finding similar items together with pieces of fuselage skin that bore evidence of pitting plus surface details that suggested they had been subjected to intense heat. All this stuff was examined by the explosive experts from the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE). Much of the day was spent searching fields and hedgerows in lower lying areas. We didn’t find a great deal. 

I was surprised to discover that, despite having served in Vietnam, some Americans did not want to venture into fields that contained cattle! A substantial piece of wreckage had landed in a small, muddy paddock in a smallholding. The farmer came along, and I asked his permission to climb over the fence in order to examine it. Once again I had difficulty in understanding a strong regional accent; but he definitely didn’t say no, so I hopped over the fence and walked towards my objective. A friend of the farmer standing nearby then called out to me, translating for me, 'He says he wouldn’t go in there with him.' ‘Him’ turned out to be the largest ram I had ever seen. I don’t know how I failed to notice the brute before. His eyes were baleful. His horns might have looked impressive from outside the enclosure; inside they just looked menacing. He started to walk purposely towards me. I immediately turned and walked, as nonchalantly as I could, towards the fence which I lofted myself over with an agility I hadn’t realised I possessed. The ram looked mildly disappointed that he had been deprived of a plaything. 

From time to time while crossing country roads, we were frequently stopped by vans belonging to the Salvation Army who had moved a couple of battalions (probably not the right word) into the area. One apocryphal tale told of these vans ‘ambushing’ an investigating team, that was then wrestled to the ground and force-fed mince pies! The story was something of an exaggeration perhaps, but Salavation Army and the WRVS between them did such a wonderful job of ensuring we were all fed and watered that one of our American colleagues remarked, 'How come your voluntary organisations are so much better than our professional ones?' 

During that evening’s meeting, or debrief session, a new RAF reconnaissance photograph was posted up on a wall. The people who had been studying it announced that they had found what appeared to be a large section of wing skin or maybe fuselage crown lying on a track through a conifer plantation. It certainly looked plausible, although I was sure that virtually the entire wing had been accounted for in Sherwood Crescent. Someone remarked that this new discovery was in Sector G, “… which is supposed to have been searched. Who was responsible for that area of Sector G”? Heads swivelled towards me; all I could do was to stare blankly and mutter something about someone must have somehow put it there after we had walked through. I came in for some ribbing and there was nothing else for it but to return to the area the following day. This we did, although it took a fair slice out of the day. We took a small copy of the reconnaissance photograph; and we reached the track through the plantation where the large piece of aircraft was supposed to lie. It all looked familiar to us. We had definitely been there two days earlier. Then, the penny dropped. The track was quite wide and was in fact a firebreak. We were standing close to a man-made pond, the contents of which were intended for fighting fires. The shape was roughly rectangular, and the edges were mainly straight. We realised that, at the time the photograph was taken, the sunlight reflecting off the water had had the effect of making the pond appear to be a light-coloured piece of metal. The Smash ‘n’ Crash sergeant looked at me. “We’ll need to get a big bowser up here if you want that lot back at Farnborough” was his sardonic remark. Later, during that evening’s meeting, I admit I took some pleasure in explaining how the RAF’s interpretation of the photo had generated a red herring. I did wonder, as the Cold War was still ongoing, if the RAF should invest in some better cameras! 

The main topic of discussion that night was the news that RARDE had confirmed the existence of explosive residue on several items of wreckage, meaning that the aircraft had been brought down by an improvised explosive device (IED). Although we had been anticipating this conclusion for a day or so, it was still a shock to realise that the disaster was in fact a terrorist atrocity. This established the Police as the main drivers of the investigation, with our ‘traditional’ roles of investigating such matters as airworthiness, systems, maintenance and operational aspects effectively being no longer required. Of course, this did not mean we could pack our bags and go home. We needed to be able to establish the anatomy of the in-flight break-up of the aircraft and pinpoint the position of the bomb in the aircraft. This meant that the process of recovering the wreckage would continue unabated.

Around the time that evidence of an IED emerged, the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 was being gathered at various collection points for onward transportation. The AAIB had negotiated the use of a huge hangar at Central Ammunition Depot (CAD) Longtown near Carlisle. This covered many acres and was more than large enough for the entire wreckage. I was taken off the countryside search and had a day back at Rosebank Crescent where the last bits of wreckage were being cut up and taken away, no doubt much to the relief of the residents.

Thereafter I spent most of my time with the growing pile of aircraft debris at Longtown. The initial sort was fairly brutal. The wing wreckage was finely divided, having been subjected to the explosion, and not thought to be required for serious further investigation. The engines, too, were not investigated in great detail, as the ‘black box’ data had shown them to be humming along sweetly until the point at which the data very abruptly ended. Therefore, we concentrated on the fuselage structure. The concrete floor of the shed was marked with the fuselage stations, meaning the positions of the circular frames and the floor beams, as indicated on the appropriate Boeing drawings. 

Then began the slow process of constructing a giant, two-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. This took time as the pieces had to be selected from the vast amount of wreckage scattered across the floor. Also, if we needed to go to our ‘Engineers Office’, where we had heaters and kettle (we were beyond the range of the WRVS and the Salvation Army and had to look out for ourselves), we faced a journey of around a quarter of a mile. Someone had the brilliant idea of hiring in a small fleet of bicycles. These were used by anyone who needed them and left at their destination where they were available for use by the next ‘customer’. The scheme worked well for a few days but, sadly, one by one the bikes fell victim to punctures brought about by the many small aluminium alloy fragments that had dropped off the wreckage when it was being unloaded or manoeuvred around the floor. I still thought it had been a great idea though.

New Year’s Eve found us in an unexpectedly convivial gathering in the hotel bar. Well, I thought it was unexpected as the event of a mere ten days earlier hardly merited a celebration. However, the bar was full on most evenings. The only difference that night was that most people remained there for a lot longer. In fact, the bar had become a regular focus where everyone could meet and talk about their day with alcohol (in some cases, copious amounts) lubricating the flow of conversation. Perhaps by accident, this was a way of dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), although no one called it that then. All of us kept an eye out for who was in the bar, with absentees receiving a call in their room to ensure they were still sane and to encourage them to join the throng in the bar. Most of us had been in the AAIB for a while and were used to dealing with fatal accident sites and associated human remains, although of course not on this scale. Every so often, particularly in our early years in the job, an accident could inexplicably have a particularly adverse effect. The principal way of dealing with it was to focus on maintaining a professional approach to the job in hand. This was often augmented, in the evenings at least, with beer! Medical advice may not recommend alcohol as a solution, particularly as it is a depressant; but it generally worked for me. Or, perhaps it was the associated conversation with a sympathetic colleague that exorcised the mental gremlins before they took root.

I spent the next few days at Longtown on the wreckage layout. More of the Engineering Inspectors were working there with a corresponding reduction of numbers ‘in the field’. In fact, plans were being made to reduce our presence north of the border although the AAIB would continue to maintain a close liaison with the police throughout the investigation; and hundreds of police officers and soldiers would continue combing the area for many months, mainly searching for smaller wreckage items that might assist with the IED part of the investigation. 

After I returned home, a roster was created that rotated staff between Farnborough and Lockerbie/Longtown; there was an overall reduction in numbers of those engaged on the investigation, which at its peak had involved most of the Inspectorate. As always with the demand-led nature of our work, it pays to be flexible in planning. 

This was clearly demonstrated when television programmes were again interrupted on the evening of Sunday 8 January 1989, this time with the news that a British Midland Boeing 737 had crashed on the M1 motorway embankment at Kegworth while attempting an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport.

The 21st of December 1988 is a date that will forever be stamped on the collective memory of the people of Lockerbie, as well as my own. It was bad enough that unseen bombers destroyed Pan Am Flight 103, together with the 259 souls on board, 31,000 feet up in the air. However, it seems unreasonably cruel that fate, with miles of open countryside available, chose to drop much of the wreckage on the town, thus making it Lockerbie’s tragedy as well. Eleven townsfolk lost their lives, and many houses were destroyed or damaged. It is difficult to imagine the confusion in the emergency services as they tried to deal with what appeared to be a number of unexplained events over a large area. For many people, it was not until the half-light of a murky December dawn that it became apparent that the remains of a Boeing 747 aircraft had come down after disintegrating high above the town. 

As with all fatal or serious air accidents, the AAIB deployed to the scene in order to investigate the circumstances. The sheer scale of this event presented challenges outside the experience of all of us, and of course my colleagues and I became witnesses to how the town itself coped with the immediate aftermath. It helped that Lockerbie, typical of many in the Scottish Borders, is a self-reliant community with its own Academy and ice rink, which served respectively as an Investigation headquarters and temporary mortuary. For several weeks we set about our own grim task — examining the wreckage and generally gathering information with which to compile our accident report (the AAIB uses the term ‘accident report’ even for acts of deliberate sabotage and mass murder such as Pan Am Flight 103). This is freely available to anyone interested in the dissemination and clinical analysis of the facts that were collected, including the technical aspects of how what many considered a surprisingly small device had caused a comprehensive airborne destruction of a jumbo jet; the background to the bomb’s presence on the aircraft is not covered. The report was published in August 1990 and that, as far as the AAIB was concerned, was that although we retained the partially reconstructed forward fuselage in our hangar as an educational exhibit and at the request of the Scottish judiciary, pending potential future legal activity. 

The AAIB resumed its task of quietly getting on with newer and mostly less newsworthy investigations to the point where the event has all but disappeared from corporate memory. However, the images and experiences of those few weeks stayed with me and have resurfaced every year in the run-up to Christmas. I often wonder how the people of Lockerbie, cruelly and randomly caught up in an act of international terrorism, managed to come to terms with what happened on that dreadful night. At the time, at least to our eyes, there was warmth, humour, hospitality, and stoicism always on display. It made our time there so much more tolerable, and I for one am grateful for that.

At Lockerbie, I never thought I was suffering unduly; although, I was aware that my spirits were low, and I felt tired for much of the time. After returning home, I felt fully restored after a few days. The memories are now almost 37 years old, and they generally reside quietly in the cerebral attic, perhaps fading a little, but still readily available. I often wonder about the extent of psychological damage among the people of Lockerbie, many of whom must have been traumatised by the explosion, the loss of relatives, friends and property, the scenes of destruction and the sight of bodies scattered around their town. In comparison, what we went through was merely unpleasant.