Pan Am 103 victims consider next steps

The federal government has never been a friend of Glen Johnson III.

A week after his sister Beth-Ann was killed on Pan Am Flight 103, two FBI agents came to his home in Hempfield, Pa., to gather fingerprint samples from his sister’s room. He was 23 at the time, and still reeling from the shock of his sister’s death. His parents, at that moment, were in Lockerbie, Scotland, involved in the painful process of identifying Beth-Ann’s remains.

Johnson led the agents to his sister’s room and quickly turned to walk away, not wanting to watch the men rifle through his sister’s belongings.

‘Don’t leave,’ one of the agents said coldly. ‘We need a witness.’

And in a sense, the Johnson family has never left. They, like many other victims’ families, are still watching the government’s every move. They watched the response to the bombing in the late ’80s and early ’90s. They watched the United States and United Nations impose sanctions on Muammar el-Qaddafi’s government. And on Tuesday, Sept. 19, many traveled to New York City to see the U.N. sanctions lifted before their eyes, along with the conspicuous abstentions of France and the United States.



The lifting of U.N. sanctions brought most Pan Am 103 families relief – in the form of about $5 million each. Now that the families’ lawsuit against Libya has been settled, many are looking for justice in other places. Money, at least for the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 Inc., is not a primary concern.

‘It’s interesting that everyone seems to believe that we’re all multibillionaires,’ Johnson said in a Sept. 20 meeting of the group in Newark, N.J. Loud laughter came from all corners of the conference room. ‘On the day you lose your family member, there is no price tag. It could be $150,000, it could be $15 million. Medical expenses, lost time at work, the emotional healing that you have to do – obviously for everyone in this room, we all know that a dollar amount would never repay it.’

Johnson recently traveled to Washington, D.C., with five other Pan Am family members to push legislation that would require the U.S. government to implement a terrorist response program for families affected by future terror attacks. During his trip, Johnson met with senators’ aides to promote the legislation and was surprised at their impressions of victims’ family members as profiteers.

Johnson said he is focusing his efforts on getting the government to pass legislation that not only compensates victims, but also provides them with a level of comfort and a ‘map’ for dealing with bringing a loved one home and helping with funeral arrangements. He hopes the legislation will be backdated to 1983 to cover both the Pan Am 103 victims and the 241 U.S. Marines killed by an Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah attack in Beirut, Lebanon.

The group is currently lobbying senators and congressmen to write letters to Attorney General John Ashcroft, who is ultimately responsible for putting the bill on the floor of the House of Representatives. Johnson is upset at the relative sloth shown by the government, but hopes that events like Sept. 11, 2001, have made it realize the urgency of the situation.

‘It seems we need a drastic and terrible event to happen. We want to try and get this enacted before that next event so that those families will have immediate help and relief.’

A frightening proposal

According to Glen Johnson’s father, another Sept. 11 might not be far off.

At this moment, thousands of uninspected packages sit in the cargo holds of passenger planes around the world. Since Sept. 11, 2001, airport security has undergone many noticeable improvements, foremost of which is the 100 percent package inspection rate for passengers on commercial airliners. But, Glen Johnson Jr. said, packages shipped via UPS, FedEx or hundreds of other shipping companies are not subject to inspection as long as they meet minimum standards set by the federal government.

Companies like UPS divide shippers into two categories: ‘known’ and ‘unknown.’ All packages sent by ‘unknown’ shippers are scanned by X-ray machines at airports. Packages from ‘known shippers,’ however, undergo no inspection of any kind and account for about 20 percent of the cargo on an average passenger jet, Johnson said. He added that ‘known shipper’ status is given to companies that have sent a certain number of packages and filled out a form stating that none of their board members come from foreign nations. The shipping company then carries out a background check of the company to determine if it is safe, and if it is, any employee of that company could conceivably slip a bomb onto any airplane in the country undetected.

To Johnson, who is part of a Federal Aviation Administration committee on airport security, the situation is unacceptable.

‘They honestly think they’re trying to do good, but they’re not really giving you security,’ Johnson said. ‘It falls far short of what this group, who has already paid a price for being lax in security, [expects]. We don’t feel that this is anywhere near adequate.’

Johnson filed a minority report in the committee’s overall report to Congress on the state of airport security, but is dissatisfied with the way the FAA addressed his concerns.

‘We have a lot of work to do and we do need help. This is a very glaring hole in the security system, where you can just get on a plane having thousands of pounds of cargo underneath your feet, and any one of them could be a bomb that didn’t go through an inspection system.’

Bill Mayo, a Rutgers University professor currently working on a new type of scanner to inspect luggage and packages, shares Johnson’s criticism of the government.

‘It’s still a concern that the federal government is essentially saying nothing on basic issues. There are things that we can do, and we’re sitting on it.’

While the government might be sitting on the issues or waiting for another Sept. 11 to shock them into action, many family members are still fighting constantly for more information on the bombing that killed their loved ones and on legislation that can help future victims of terrorism.

Bob Monetti, the former president of VPAF-103, said the next step for him lies in finding information and filing Freedom of Information requests to bring him closer to the truth. As for what other families will do to keep the fight going, Monetti can only speculate. ‘Since Qaddafi has made such an issue that this is not blood money, maybe some families want to get together and hire a hit man,’ he said.

Anti-Qaddafi sentiments run high among family members, but for the most part, they are taking the legal approach.

‘We’re not going to go crazy,’ said Joan Dater, who lost her daughter, Gretchen, in 1988. ‘There’s always going be work to be done. Terrorism is something that we can’t run away from.’





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