Families of Flight 103 Victims Charge Cover-Up, Seek Probe

Relatives of victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 launched a petition drive today, charging that a “true cover-up” has occurred and demanding an aggressive investigation of the tragedy.

“The President of the United States has said nothing, has offered us nothing. We want answers. We cannot go to grave sites without answers,” said Eleanor Hudson of Albany, N.Y., whose daughter, Melina, 16, died in the Dec. 21 explosion and crash over Lockerbie, Scotland.

“There is a true cover-up here. There is true incompetence. I don’t know why they weren’t warned,” Hudson said.

Hudson and about a dozen angry relatives of students who died in the crash are members of an organization called Victims of Pan Am 103. They launched the nationwide petition drive in North Adams, the home of flight victim Wendy Lincoln, 23.

All 259 people aboard and 11 others on the ground were killed when a bomb hidden in a radio-cassette player exploded aboard the jumbo jet.

Two London newspapers reported today that authorities know the identity of the terrorist who planted the bomb, and a police investigator said authorities know which piece of baggage contained the bomb.