Adequately Explained by Stupidity?

Author:Morag G. Kerr
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783067800
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd

Figure 18

Top view of AVE4041 showing apparent arrangement of Heathrow-loaded luggage.

The anomalously-positioned cases in relation to Bedford’s evidence are Mr. Bernstein’s two items, the last two to arrive. Instead of being on the right-hand end of the row at the back, one is flat at the front and the other is in the middle of the back row.

So, is there any possible alternative candidate for the mystery item, something which might have shown up in the interline shed and been loaded in a position that in the end was underneath the bomb suitcase?

Unaccompanied baggage might be the answer, but in contrast to Frankfurt there is no rush-tag luggage recorded as heading for PA103 at Heathrow. The only outside possibility in this respect is Mr. Hubbard’s misrouted suitcase, which was indeed a brown Samsonite. The route taken by his two cases from Berlin to Heathrow was never definitely established, and although they were believed to have gone via Frankfurt on PA637, there was a possibility they might have gone via Hamburg, or even Hannover (see page 33). In that case, they must have become separated in the interline shed, with one waiting safely overnight for the Seattle flight on Thursday and the other being mistakenly loaded into AVE4041. This possibility was raised by the plaintiffs in the US civil action, in response to the suggestion from Pan Am’s defence that the stray Hubbard case might have been the thirteenth item x-rayed by Kurt Maier at Frankfurt.

However, the balance of probabilities is very much against the Hubbard cases having passed through the Heathrow interline shed. None of the staff in the shed reported seeing a rush-tagged case, and both Kamboj and Parmar explicitly stated that they didn’t see anything with a Pan Am tag. The loading of the container in the shed was calm and unhurried, and it seems an unlikely way for the cases to have become separated compared to the semi-pandemonium of the unloading of the feeder flight. The bottom line though, is that whether or not Mr. Hubbard’s lost case was routed through the interline shed, it wasn’t the case Bedford saw. It was recovered with no evidence of any explosives involvement. It wasn’t under the bomb.

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