Left: Mother of Pan Am Flight 103 Victim, on the floor, while at the Pan Am gate at JFK Airport in NYC collapses in grief learning her daughter was killed while screaming in the most horrific blood-curdling scream: “Where’s my baby”?

“Where’s my baby”?  (go to 13:56 of the video) This blood-curdling scream, to me, was what I’ve never forgotten about the disaster of Pan Am Flight 103. I remember being home, in our den, on the 8th floor of our apartment, seeing this on the 11 o’clock news seeing it live, and oh brother did it ever stick with me. This blood-curdling scream brought chills up my spine the first time I saw it back then in 1988 and still makes my hair on the back of my neck stand up straight today some thirty years later.

I remember it oh so well, seeing this on the news.  As I watched this, as a 20-year-old, I too had tears running down my face. After all, I’m a very sensitive person, to begin with, and secondly, back then, I had just got past the 7th anniversary of my sister’s passing December 14 the week before. So, maybe, in general, this time of year, is a ‘teary-eyed’ one for me regardless.  However, seeing this on live tv, as it occurred and hearing that scream, for me at least, you can’t but ‘not’ feel something for this poor destroyed woman on the floor of  JFK Airport and her family.  And yet, when I sit and think about it, knowing my own history, I could’ve easily been with this poor distraught woman on the floor next to her. My father was supposed to be on this doomed flight!

I can almost as if hear my father’s words now, within my thoughts, where he said something to the effect of: “had my meeting not been canceled, I would’ve been on the doomed flight Pan Am 103″. But thankfully, for him, for us, his meeting was canceled. So, he actually came home on December 14, 1988, on Pan Am Flight 103. 

In a past article here in my blog about my dad, I have mentioned before that the Pan Am Flight 103 event was his second ‘near-miss’ of almost being killed by a terrorist attack. His first incident was in Frankfurt, Germany at the Airport in Frankfurt in 1985. So, to him and in turn our entire family, the ‘dangers’ of travel back then, we all were aware of and surely, this most recent incident back then, Pan Am Flight 103, really did make all of us think how just within a flash of an eye, ‘boom’ it all can be gone and taken away from you.

Parts of Pan Am Flight 103 and the area where it crashed

Some of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103

Needless to say, I was eternally grateful that thankfully back then my dad was not on that doomed flight. We all were, frankly.  Heck, we’ve had our share of personal disasters already by then.  Whether the fact that my sister Kari died at the age of 16 from mono and hepatitis on December 14, 1981.   And then some seven months prior to, my mom almost died at age of 45 from a Viral Encephalitis attack, of which she survived, but was now helpless in wheel-chair. Thankfully, she is now 83 years old and still kicking, I pray this continues for her. So, if god-forbid we had lost dad back then, we surely wouldn’t have been prepared for ‘what to do’ next.  So, despite our shortcomings, if one can even call our history ‘that’, we did luck out, with this, but was literally by a ‘coin toss’ or just about.

Now the other thing that really has always bothered me about this horrible event, as well, the ‘facts’.  And let’s face it, one rarely gets ‘facts’ from any government, especially, if and when the govt wants to ‘hide things’ that are not so beneficial to them. Some time had passed since this event, and I remember watching ABC Nightly News with the late Peter Jennings. He had reported that Pan Am Flight 103 had ‘not’ been what the news media made it out to be. During that time, and even today, some thirty years later, the propaganda is that bunch of terrorists from Lybia were responsible for this doomed flight. Well, not necessarily so, by what Peter Jennings reported back then. The truth is, the Americans brought down this flight, yes killing their own people.  This is ‘no conspiracy’ yet when one looks down even further to the facts, it opens up more for the world to see.

Apparently, ABC News Peter Jennings reported that due to an ” American Sting Operation gone bad” is what brought the plane down, killing all on board. Jennings reported that one U.S Govt Agent was on board, and in his briefcase was a bomb, that was going to be used for another case via “Sting operation”. However, this ‘bomb’ by accident detonated way too early, while 31,000 feet in the air over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all on board, including the U.S Govt Agent who was the rightful owner of this briefcase and three other govt agents who were also on this flight as well.  Frankly, the number of ‘agents’ on board will always be hard to find or prove, when everything on, Wikipedia for example, is written in such a way to cater to govt demands and desires via ‘articles’ by unknowing reporters who know of nothing about how government works, unless they are ‘mixed in the middle of such operations’ and usually then, its too late for them to ever ‘write an honest summary’ about anything they are investigating, especially if it brings the government into bad light. That is factual. I speak from facts, not ‘conspiracy’. Let me also mention, that I, myself was stunned when I investigated information myself to write this ” Anniversary article” of the event learning at least three U.S. Govt agents were on that doomed flight. To me, that in of itself should send ” alerts” to anyone learning this. It did me! My common sense tells me that if this information is true, then something was going on, and well, it’s all too suspicious to me. I’ve learned plenty about how U.S Govt works behind ” closed doors”. Whether from the time my father was alive in the 80s during his own debacle or from other contacts of mine from the past.

How?  Lest we not forget, my father was arrested by the Feds in 1988. We know how the ‘undercover’ and the ‘schemes’ and the ‘crooks with badges’ work. Knowing what I know, with thanks to my dad’s personal dealings and his other connections and their own dealings with the feds, it is no wonder why to see how as of today, 2018, things like General Flynn has lost his home, lost everything, despite ‘not’ being ‘found guilty’ of anything, excluding, “lying”. Listen, folks, when dealing with the government, the number one people ‘lying’ are most often those with badges. So, that being said, this is how I personally know, from all what my dad went through and his friend, Barry Brokaw, and his friend, and others, the ‘inside’ works of those ‘wishing to do harm’.

Pan Am Flight 103 is no different. The sad thing for those who aren’t so lucky to have had a life like our family, that they are unaware of such crooked possibilities. Today, the best way ‘society’ can shut up those who aren’t smart enough to ‘know better’ is then to claim those who ‘do know better’ as just being “conspiracy”. I got no problem with others believing that or not.  Heck, I know what I saw that day on the news with Peter Jennings and more importantly, I know how government ‘sting operations’ work personally, with my dad’s horrible experience. I do feel bad that they used two Lybian ‘scapegoats’ to weasel out of their responsibility of murdering their own people. Yet, when a ‘citizens life’ is of unimportance to those who they deem themselves as ‘better than thou’, then sadly, you can have things as bad as Pan Am Flight 103 or worse.

In fact, when looking back at Pan Am Flight 103, one can see that it was really the breaking point of ‘terrorism’ during those mid-1980s. I had had my own personal ‘bomb scare’ when I was leaving for Italy from JFK back around 1986 or maybe was 1985.  Sadly, I forget the exact year. It was one of those. I was planning to go to my annual ski school trip to Bormio, Italy. We were flying on Alitalia from JFK to Milano. We were supposed to take off at about 19:30.  But it was late.  Eventually, the monitor kept moving the time by about an hour or so.  So when it happened the first time, we were not bothered at all.  We used it as more time to ‘hang out’ at the airport. Then it moved again as it got near to the time it had said before. It did this about three times. I remember one of our counselors on the trip said to us:  “well, the only time to panic, is when it says: see agent.  Then you know its something serious”.  Sure enough, it did. “See Agent” it said.

By this time, we were told that there was a likelihood that there was a bomb on our plane, and that we had to go through the bomb scare procedure. They brought us out to the tarmac, where all the luggage was circling the aircraft. We had to walk around the plane and find our bag. Once we did, we were told to pick it up and bring it out to be packed on the plane.  We did this for about an hour.

Eventually – our plane did take off, but not before 1 in the morning or something. By this time, we were all ‘reading the emergency pamphlets’ of the aircraft and trying to memorize all the ‘what to do in case this happens’ procedure etc… And yes, even some ‘bomb jokes’ were going around, but this was coming from the stupid kids, certainly not me. Despite being someone who loves airplanes and flying, I do fear stuff like this sort of thing occurring – hey, I guess no one really knows, right?

In the end, from this personal example of my flight on Alitalia, the rumor was that a bomb was indeed found, that was planted on our plane and was supposed to go off inflight to Milano. At least somehow, ‘this’ got out.  At the time, it sure as heck did seem true, for even the ‘teachers/adults’ on the trip, was saying this they heard it from the ‘agents’ and then told us.  I remember calling my mom and her caretaker back home in Brooklyn Heights, about this news, and then calling, actually waking up my dad who was back in London, and informing the hotel operator that there was a ‘bomb’ in our Alitalia flight, so we were told. etc…  I actually remember in my head now, as I re-think to this story, the surprise, and astonishment this brit had about my news.  Yet, somehow as a teen, no older than 17, I still followed through with our plans for the ski trip.  In the end, all did end up well for us.

So as December 21 is nearing an end for 2018, and this 30th anniversary of the Pan Am Flight 103 disaster, will soon be beginning its 31st year, there is one thing to always keep in mind as we move forward from such horrible occurrences like this.  And that is: “We never know what tomorrow will bring”. 

To think that my father easily could’ve been on this flight, and he could’ve been murdered on this day some 30 years ago, but wasn’t only due to a meeting being canceled.  As I said before, ‘that’ is as if a similar to a ‘coin toss’. And yet, to think, had my dad been on this flight some thirty years ago, I would be talking about his death, and ‘how he passed’, and to make things worse; December 22, tomorrow as I’m writing this on December 21, December 22, was my mom and dad’s wedding anniversary! Yes – my father is long gone, but from cancer, not from this horrible event.  But he almost was. The other thing I will add to this is, thanks to my dad, his business and career and his contacts, he was ‘aware’ and intuned with the world, and how things work.  Sure he often held concern for things, but he never really was ‘afraid’. He would ‘do what he had to’.  And as to how he would say;  “if something happens to me, and if I can’t stop it, what can I do?  I’m not going to stop doing things, I’m still going to ‘do things’ travel’ and he did. That’s what we all should do.

Leftover parts of the plane of Pan Am Flight 103

Pan Am Flight 103 will be one horrible event etched in my memory for another 30 years.  Sadly, that “scream”  that blood-curdling scream, to me, is what will always stand out about Pan Am Flight 103. Those three words heard around the world some thirty years ago today; “Where’s my baby”?        😦