I lost my daughter in the Lockerbie disaster – but we still don’t really know the truth
Share:
On the wall of Dr Jim Swire and his wife’s bedroom hangs a painting of their daughter, Flora. She’s smiling, dressed in white and clutching a bunch of flowers in her right hand while poignantly holding out a forget-me-not in her left. Of course, the couple could never forget Flora.
![[LOCKERBIE BOMBING: The wreckage of the PanAm airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland. The World Court 13 October opened hearings that pit Britain and the United States against Libya over the 1988 bombing. The hearings opened with Britain calling on Libya to withdraw its charge that Britain and the US violated an international convention on civil aviation safety....WAR...ACTS OF TERROR]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/IP_139502-1ddd.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Ever since she was killed when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie in December 1988, Jim has fought relentlessly to ensure her plight, and that of 269 others, is remembered – and to reveal the truth about who killed them. ‘It’s a life sentence, to lose someone that you love so deeply,’ Jim, now 88, tells Metro.co.uk over Zoom from his Cotswolds home.
Crowding him are shelves packed with documents, folders, books and tapes amassed from over 35 years of research into exactly what happened that night just before Christmas. ‘She was my eldest daughter. And her integrity and intelligence was snuffed out in an avoidable disaster. And then the truth was concealed by those who should have been eager to reveal the truth,’ he says.
![[Dr Jim Swire and his wife Jane, whose daughter Flora, 24, died in the Lockerbie air disaster, leave the Department of Transport in London where they and other relatives of Britons killed in the tragedy, met Transport Secretary Cecil Parkinson to discuss airport security.]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_196872794-6be7.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Jim wrote about the family’s heartbreaking search to find out what happened in his book, A Father’s Search For Justice, which has since inspired the new Sky TV drama, Lockerbie: A Search for the Truth, where he is portrayed by Colin Firth. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.
![[File photo dated 26/12/1988 of seats among the wreckage from Pan Am flight 103 in Lockerbie after the plane was blown apart by a terrorist bomb. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Friday December 21, 2018. The 270 people killed when a passenger plane exploded over the town 30 years ago will be remembered at services in Scotland and the US later this week. See PA story MEMORIAL Lockerbie. Photo credit should read: PA Wire]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/SEI_45092482-b2ff.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
