Remembering Pan Am Flight 103: George Stobbs
George Stobbs, a retired inspector for Lockerbie Police, was one of the first officers on the scene on December 21, 1988. He recalls seeing "a great ball of fire" and the "terrific heat."
Video Transcript
I quickly got into uniform, jumped in my car, and I drove two hours to Lockerbie. On the outskirts of the town, I couldn't get any further because of the queue of traffic, and somebody was stopping cars getting into the town. So, I just drove my car onto the footpath and just abandoned it, walked out onto the road. And there was a police car coming along, picked me up, and headed for the police station. As we went over a fly-over, I could see to my right-hand side, which would be sort of south of Lockerbie, a great ball of fire, and I could smell smoke and aviation fuel.
I couldn't understand it, to be quite honest, because still fixed in my mind was that this was a military aircraft. And the devastation I was seeing, I still couldn't fathom how it had happened. Anyway, I went into Sherwood Crescent, and as I got further into—it's sort of a semi-circle—and as I got into this area, there was a great roaring noise and flames coming out of a great big hole in the ground and dense, dense smoke. Terrific heat. I actually saw a wrought iron gate melting. It was like it was made of butter, and it was dripping. And there was a fireman standing there, and he had a hose, and there's no water coming out of it. And, of course, I’m saying, “What the hell is wrong with you, why don't you get up and put these fires out?” And he says, “Oh, we don’t have any water.”
When the aircraft came in, one of the engines had fallen off, and one landed in one of the streets and the other one landed in a 10-acre field with a six-inch water pipe flowing down through it. And this engine had to land on top of that six-inch water pipe. There was no water. What they did was very ingenious: The fire brigade got the local dairy people to fill their milk tankers with water and bring it along, and they pumped it out of them and they put the fires out that way.
Video Download
Video Source
Recent Video
- 06.11.2024 — Inside the FBI Podcast: The 911 S5 Cyber Threat
- 06.11.2024 — FBI New York Timeshare Fraud PSA
- 05.20.2024 — Inside the FBI Podcast: The FBI Police
- 05.20.2024 — FBI Seattle: Where We Work
- 05.20.2024 — FBI Seattle's Police Week Message
- 05.20.2024 — FBI Philadelphia PRC Police Extortion PSA
- 05.20.2024 — FBI St. Louis: Surveillance Video in Hate Crime Investigation (February 2024)
- 05.13.2024 — Director Wray's 2024 National Police Week Address
- 05.07.2024 — Inside the FBI Podcast: Investigating Torture
- 05.07.2024 — Inside the FBI Podcast: Trauma Notification Training
- 04.24.2024 — FBI Chaplain Program
- 04.23.2024 — FBI Cyber at RSA Conference™ 2024
- 04.17.2024 — FBI, Lumberton Police Seek Information in Cases of Three Women Found Dead
- 04.15.2024 — Director Wray Speaks on Civil Rights at 16th Street Baptist Church
- 04.11.2024 — FBI Seattle Women's History Month Vodcast
- 04.11.2024 — FBI Seattle Elder Fraud Vodcast
- 04.10.2024 — Philadelphia Recovered Firearms (B-roll)
- 04.08.2024 — Robert Contee Discusses Transnational Repression
- 03.21.2024 — N.H. Law Enforcement Officials Warn of Online Scams in Connecticut
- 03.15.2024 — FBI Seattle SAC Statement on MMIP
FBI Weekly Newsletter
Subscribe to our email newsletter for news on the FBI, sent out every week.