Thousands honour Lockerbie victims

12 April 2012

Thousands of people joined together in a minute's silence to remember the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing which happened 20 years ago today.

Tributes were paid at services across the UK and in the US on the anniversary of the atrocity, when Pan Am Flight 103 from Heathrow to New York exploded in the skies above the Scottish town in 1988.

All 259 people on board were killed and a further 11 died in Lockerbie where the wreckage fell to the ground.

Their names were read out at vigils arranged to coincide with the moment of the disaster, minutes after 7pm on Sunday.

In Lockerbie, hundreds of residents gathered at ceremonies at Dryfesdale and Tundergarth churches.

The Rev Sandy Stoddart told the congregation at Dryfesdale: "I have printed 270 names on the back of the order of service. This is a list of those who died. But it is not a list of the victims, because we can never list all those names.

"Nobody but God knows all the names on the list."

At Heathrow, former employees of the Pan Am airline joined relatives of some of the 33 British victims at a memorial at Heathrow Airport chapel, led by the Rev John Mosey, whose daughter Helga died in the disaster.

New York State's Syracuse University, which lost 35 students in the bombing, held a service and some 500 people were due to attend a remembrance services at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington DC.

Of the passengers and crew killed in the Lockerbie disaster, 188 were Americans.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in