An SNP MSP who served as a nurse at the hospital nearest the site of the Lockerbie bombing has told of the moment staff realised no casualties would be coming. Emma Harper worked at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary and was called after Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over the town in the Scottish Borders on December 21 1988, killing 270 people, 11 of whom were locals to the area. In a members’ business debate brought by fellow SNP MSP Christine Grahame, Ms Harper said her father had called her and her sister – a colleague at the hospital – to tell her of hearing a “boom” in the sky, with initial reports suggesting a military plane had crashed.

“We were summoned to the hospital where we both worked and under the professional, calm, efficient, effective instruction from the senior charge nurse in theatre, the theatre team were expected to anticipate mass casualties,” she said. “We prepared for that. “We prepped theatre one and theatre two, major trauma, theatre three, orthopaedic trauma, theatre four, minor injuries. “We primed IV fluids, set up trolleys for general anaesthesia and intubation for arterial lines and for central venous access line placement.”.

But she added: “At 10pm, the theatre staff were crowded in the coffee room, glued to the news as the facts were beginning to unfold. “There would be no casualties coming to theatre. “This was not a military plane crash – it was Pan Am Flight 103, with 259 humans on board (which) exploded at 7.02pm, four days before Christmas.”. Ms Grahame brought the debate before Holyrood in response to a book released by Dr Jim Swire – whose daughter Flora died in the disaster – late last year, subsequently turned into a drama starring Colin Firth.

In her speech, Ms Grahame laid out the history of the case which put Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – the only man ever convicted of the atrocity – behind bars, including some questions which remain, and called for a public inquiry into its handling. Ms Grahame pointed to the testimony of shopkeeper Tony Gauci, who said Megrahi resembled the man who bought clothes in his Maltese store which were found in the suitcase holding the bomb – evidence which the Megrahi family’s lawyer described as “low quality” in their appeal.

Any inquiry should look at the shooting down of Iran Air flight 655, which was hit by a US ship in Iranian airspace in 1988, Ms Grahame claimed. “So much more can be said, but at the very least, doubts over that identification should be enough for a public inquiry into all the circumstances surrounding events from the date of the Iranian passenger plane being shot out of the sky by an American warship while that passenger plane was flying over Iranian airspace,” she said.