The Forgotten Flight: Terrorism, Diplomacy and the Pursuit of Justice.

• Author: McNamara, Thomas E.
• Position: Book review

The Forgotten Flight: Terrorism, Diplomacy and the Pursuit of Justice by Stuart H. Newberger; One World, London, 2017

To almost all Americans over the age of 30, the December 1988 tragedy of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland is a story that needs no telling. The bombing and its aftermath were front-page news for over a decade. Nine months later, an identical tragedy occurred with an identical explosion, but this country hardly noticed. Yet, the two flights are linked by their common perpetrator, the tragic outcomes, parallel investigations, and a common conclusion. Author Stuart Newberger is a renowned lawyer who specialized in counterterrorism law. He tells the story of that second flight and correctly calls it the "Forgotten Flight."

The regularly scheduled UTA (Union de Transports Aeriens) Flight 772 left Ndjamena, Chad on September 19, 1989 and exploded, killing all 170 aboard, including the unwitting passenger with the bomb in his luggage. Pan Am 103 was designed to explode over the unsearchable Atlantic Ocean. It detonated over Lockerbie due to a delayed departure. UTA 772 was set to explode over the almost-unsearchable Sahara Desert in Niger, and it did.

The perpetrator of both these barbarities was Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi and his intelligence services. As one of the chief sponsors of pan-Arab terrorism, Qaddafi was engaging in terrorism against Western targets and interests, and aggression against his neighbors, Chad in particular. The U.S. and France countered with political and conventional military attempts to stop him. Unable to succeed in military operations against the two, Qaddafi attacked their civilian airliners. The first was a failed hijacking at the Karachi, Pakistan airport in September 1987. Then, came the December 1988 PanAm and the UTA bombings.

The book begins as a non-fiction who-done-it. Where is the plane; how did it crash; who brought it down; why? It took over two years for the answers to emerge. Newberger recounts a cooperative effort between French prosecutors and intelligence agencies and their American counterparts to seek justice for victims of one of the world's worst terrorist acts. Next comes the battle in U.S. courts against a determined Libyan regime, resulting in a huge multimillion dollar judgment. Finally, it is a story of how the Pan Am and UTA cases came together again, as American diplomats negotiated with Libya for a comprehensive settlement--less than the judgment, but...