Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in a terrorist attack, snuck a fake bomb onto a plane to prove a point

Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in a terrorist attack, snuck a fake bomb onto a plane to prove a point

Pan Am Flight 103 was a Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York City that was destroyed by a terrorist bomb on Wednesday, 21 December 1988, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew on board.


Large sections of the aircraft crashed into Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 11 more people on the ground. This has become known as the Lockerbie bombing.


One of the victims was Flora Swire, daughter of Dr. Jim Swire, who became a spokesman for UK Families Flight 103, which represented British relatives.


Swire was very involved in the aftermath of the bombing, toward a solution for the difficulties in bringing suspects in the original bombing to trial, and later advocated for the retrial and release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the originally convicted suspect in the case, believing him to be innocent.


One of the more extreme things he did in response to the bombing was to take a fake bomb onto two separate flights to demonstrate how easy it was to get past security. He first took it from London's Heathrow Airport to JFK, and then from JFK to Boston.


His fake bomb consisted of a radio cassette player and the confectionery marzipan, which was used as a substitute for Semtex.


Some victim's families approved of the stunt, while others weren't too happy. He was asked to keep quiet about the incident by some American families, but it became public six weeks later.


(Source)





Disqus
Comments :