84 MORE BODIES FOUND AT CRASH SITE CIA BEIRUT CHIEF IS VICTIM

Author: Associated Press 

 Date: Sunday, December 25, 1988 
Page: 1 
Section: NATIONAL/FOREIGN

 
Chief Constable John Boyd said there would be no scaling down of the search until the bodies of all 258 persons aboard the Boeing 747 and those who died on the ground are located. 

 Helicopters and more than 600 people searched miles of Scottish countryside for victims of Wednesday night's crash, which showered this quiet town with flames and shards of jagged metal. 

 Among the dead was the CIA's station chief in Beirut, US officials said yesterday. The CIA operative was not identified. 

 But there is no known reason to believe that he was a specific target of terrorists or that his presence on Flight 103 was tied in any other way to the disaster, one of the officials said. "I don't know of any specific link," the official said. 

 The Reagan administration declined to verify or deny that the CIA agent was aboard the jetliner, as initially reported by NBC News. 

 In the Scottish town of 2,500 people, shops remained open and churches held Christmas Eve services, but the heart had gone out of the holiday. Rev. Patrick Keegans of the town's Roman Catholic Church, whose own home was destroyed in the crash, put Christmas preparations aside yesterday to meet with relatives of the victims at a counseling center in the parish hall. 

 A police spokesman, Angus Kennedy, said last night that 84 more bodies were recovered after the search area was expanded, bringing the total to 239. 

 None of the bodies has been positively identified, and Kennedy said it was a "fair question" whether all the remaining bodies will ever be found. 

 Six local residents listed as missing have been located alive and one other has been confirmed as dead, Kennedy said. That leaves 10 townspeople still listed as missing. 

 He said police also believed that the occupants of only two cars destroyed in the explosion were missing, since what was thought to have been a third car was merely a license plate already in the road when the disaster occurred. 

 Officials earlier had not accounted for occupants of two other cars caught in the inferno but said yesterday that one driver had been treated for injuries and the other already was on the list of the missing. 

 Searchers extended their hunt to more than 30 miles east of Lockerbie. Papers, clothing, money and mail from the plane has been found as far away as the Northumberland coast, 70 miles east of the crash site. 

 Investigators were examining the flight's cockpit recording, which ended with a brief, unexplained "faint noise." 

 Suspicions of sabotage were prompted by the inexplicable sudden breakup of the plane at 31,000 feet, a claim of responsibility and disclosures that the US government had been warned of a plot to bomb a Pan Am flight between Frankfurt and New York in December. 

 But British aviation authorities, who are leading the crash probe, said the cause still was unknown and there was no evidence to suggest that a bomb blew up the plane. 

 The mourning continued throughout Christmas Eve in the village. 

 Christmas "is really the furthest thing from my mind right now. It's not important," said Joe Horgan, an American who had come to the village, where a relative died in Wednesday night's crash. 

 Horgan, one of about 20 people who lost loved ones and came to the crash scene in southwestern Scotland, met briefly with reporters yesterday on condition that his hometown and any details about his relative on the flight not be disclosed. 

 Beneath the fanciful tower of the Town Hall, a growing pile of flowers testified to grief. 

 One of the three-dozen bunches, including Christmas holly, that had been placed there said: "God bless you Melina. We love you always. Your father and mother." 

 A notice board carried condolences from Prince Charles and Princess Diana and from President Reagan. 

 In London, Queen Elizabeth II broadcast an unprecedented second Christmas message to comfort those who suffered in the Pan Am jet crash, the Dec. 7 Armenian earthquake and the Dec. 12 rail crash in south London that killed 34 persons. 

 She said the three tragedies "destroyed the lives of many people who were looking forward to celebrating Christmas with their families and friends." She offered prayers and sympathy to the injured and bereaved and said she hoped "the eternal message of Christmas will bring some comfort in the hour of sadness." 

 On Dec. 5, a caller identifying himself with the radical Palestinian Abu Nidal group telephoned a warning to the US Embassy in Helsinki that a Pan Am passenger jet bound from Frankfurt to New York via London would be attacked. 

 The State Department said Thursday it sent out a security alert. Still, some US officials complained privately that insufficient precautions were taken and that servicemen traveling home for the holidays were not informed. 

AA0541;12/24 LDRISC;12/27,17:36 CRASH25