No More Bodies Found at Lockerbie Crash Site : Tired Searchers Break for Yule Services

Soldiers and volunteers spent Christmas scouring the countryside for clues and victims from Pan Am Flight 103, taking a break from the grim search to join saddened townspeople at somber church services.

No more bodies were found Sunday as low clouds and dismal weather grounded search helicopters, Deputy Chief Constable Paul Newell said.

“Lots of our people are getting fairly tired,” he said. He said some search dogs were retired for the day “because dogs don’t go on as well as human beings.”

“We still have areas that are almost impregnable,” he said, referring to the wooded and hilly terrain.

Sixty-one relatives of victims, most of them Americans, were in Lockerbie on Christmas Day, said Leslie Jardine, spokesman for social workers in the town. Police spokesman Angus Kennedy said some were taken to the search areas.

No Positive Identifications

No bodies have been positively identified, and police were unable to tell relatives when bodies might be available for burial.

Police said 239 bodies had been brought to temporary morgues so far, including 84 on Christmas Eve. There were 258 people aboard the Pan Am flight, which originated in Frankfurt, with a change of planes before heading on to New York.

Police still have not accounted for 10 townspeople and the occupants of two cars destroyed by wreckage that rained on the area during Wednesday night’s crash. Police said Sunday that the driver of one of the cars was identified as a Yorkshire man driving a company car.

During a church service on Sunday in Lockerbie, the Roman Catholic bishop of Galloway, Maurice Taylor, brought a message that Jesus Christ “is alive today in this town and in the hearts of the people.”

Two pews were reserved at the Holy Trinity Church for relatives of crash victims who had come from the United States.

At All Saints Church, a small Anglican parish, two relatives stood silently while the congregation sang, “O Come All Ye Faithful.” The Rev. Alan Neal, parish rector, said the two were a father and a son who both lost wives in the crash.

The strain of the disaster, and the attention it has brought to a quiet corner of southwestern Scotland, began to show Sunday. Police admitted only parishioners and relatives of the dead to Mass, keeping reporters and cameras in a cluster across the street.

Thoughts of Death

On a day traditionally devoted to celebrating the Nativity, sermons turned to thoughts of death--and why such disasters occur.

“Father, if you’re the God of love why did you let this happen?,” asked Taylor. “Why did you allow the destruction of hundreds of innocent lives? The 10 who were citizens of Lockerbie? The many dozens who had never heard of Lockerbie, but whose lives ended so appallingly in the streets and fields of this part of Scotland?

“And why do you permit so many people to have to suffer the cruel tragic burden of bereavement? The answers to these questions--how to make sense of the pieces of this seemingly senseless jigsaw--God alone knows,” he said.

Taylor’s words were echoed by the Rev. Derek Rawcliffe, the Anglican bishop of Glasgow and Galway, who preached at All Saints Church.

“I don’t know (why). But one thing I do know,” he said. “My response . . . must be love to all the victims, and love shown in a practical way.”

If it turns out that the plane was brought down by saboteurs, Rawcliffe said, “then we have to do the difficult task of forgiving them.”

No Conclusion on Cause

Authorities have said that a bomb or structural failure are the most likely causes, but investigators from Britain and the United States have reached no conclusion. The jumbo jet apparently broke up at 31,000 feet, showering flaming debris over the Scottish countryside.

Soldiers, most dressed in fatigues and muddy boots, filled three rows of the small church.

For most of the army and Royal Air Force personnel in Lockerbie, there was a lunch break for turkey soup, turkey, mince pie and--if they wanted it--a can of beer.

Isabelle Robertson of the Women’s Royal Volunteer Service said it had been a sad Christmas dinner for “a lot of very tired young men who have seen dreadful things.”