In the late-December days following the Pan Am Flight 103 explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland, friends and family of the 259 passengers boarded their own flights across the Atlantic.

“Victims’ family members went to Lockerbie because they just wanted to be there,” said Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, Inc. “They were still bringing bodies in from the field.”

The unplanned gathering of parents, spouses, children and loved ones in the aftermath of the 1988 crash, which killed 35 Syracuse University students traveling back to the United States after a semester abroad in London and Florence, laid the groundwork for a victims’ advocacy group that still has political clout 25 years after the bombing.

The group formally organized in February 1989 to discover the truth about the bombing, said Duggan, who said he did not know anyone on the plane. The founding members advocated for airline safety and created a support network for grieving family and friends. While the passage of various air safety and victims advocacy legislation speak to the weighty influence of the victims’ group, current board members say the group continues to be an active political force working toward its founding goals.

“A lot of people say, ‘What is there to do after 25 years? What do you do?’” said Mary Kay Stratis, the group’s chairwoman, who lost her husband in the December 21, 1988 bombing.

But with two yearly meetings and between three and four phone conferences among the 18 members of the group’s board each year, she said, the group has maintained a consistent level of activity through the years. And now the family members who were too young to participate in 1989 — including Stratis’ own daughter — are stepping up, she said.

“I don’t fear the thing is going to fall apart,” she said. “The next generation is doing very nicely keeping alive our mission.”

Stratis noted treasurer Glenn Johnson’s role in advocating for airline safety. Johnson said this involved physically “making the rounds” in Washington, D.C. and lobbying lawmakers when the victims group formed. The group has since established itself as an influential force.

“We have now reached a point where we have continual contact, and as their personnel change, we make that connection again,” he said.

Johnson, whose daughter was coming home from college in London aboard the Pan Am flight, represents the victims of Pan Am Flight 103 on the TSA Aviation Security Advisory Committee. He said the advisory committee is currently wrapping up a project that ultimately increased screening of plane cargo from 17 percent to 100 percent in four years.

It is also working on an initiative to establish PreCheck in airports, which would hasten security lines by allowing passengers to file background checks prior to arrival at the airport. This is in effect in more than 40 airports currently, he said, and is expected to reach 100 by year’s end. 

Aside from airline security, the Pan Am victims have played a significant role in shaping the way the U.S. government deals with victims of disasters, said Richard Marquise, a retired FBI agent who worked on the investigation from the day of the crash.

“We did not have a lot of experience in dealing with victims,” Marquise said. “This was the first big one where we had to deal with 189 American victims and you actually had a cohesive group that came together and started asking questions of investigators.”

Marquise said he remembered the first time he addressed the victims group in Albany, N.Y., in early 1991 and the painful experience of hearing the family members say they felt the FBI wasn’t making any progress in the investigation.

“In terms of dealing with victims, it’s something that we did not do very well in the late 80s and 90s,” Marquise said.

But since then, he said, Congress has passed legislation to give victims more rights and ultimately deal with victims in a more proactive manner. “I won’t say they came out of Lockerbie, but part of the Lockerbie experience fed into how it’s in the government today,” he said.

The relationship between the victims group and the government continues to develop, said Duggan, president of the group, considering the investigation into the bombing is still open despite the indictment of Libyan Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi.

“To this day, 25 years later, they convicted one guy and we know that he didn’t do it himself,” Duggan said.

He said the group met with former FBI Director Robert Mueller for a briefing on the investigation before Mueller’s retirement in September. At the briefing, nearly 25 years after the actual bombing, Duggan said, Mueller promised to find who else was involved in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.

Said Duggan: “We’ve been promised that by the U.S. government and I believe the U.S government is going to do the best they can to get to the bottom of that.”

Published on October 7, 2013 at 12:16 am