Campaigner Dr Jim Swire has spoken out against what he describes as the "ethos of modern British capitalism", after scientific consensus appeared to emerge this week that vindicated the closure of European airspace last year due to the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland.

Swire points out that BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh was among those arguing in favour of the lifting of the flight restriction, linking this with the claimed failure of BA to ground flights in the light of a security breach at Heathrow airport in the hours before the departure of Pan Am 103, which Swire says would have been "costly". 

"This week we have confirmation, from Susan Stipp of the University of Copenhagen, that to have flown civil aircraft during the ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland might have endangered innocent lives. At the time Willie Walsh of British Airways actively sought to have the flight bans lifted. This from the CEO of the airline which in 1982 had come within a whisker of losing a 747 to the ash cloud from Mount Galunggung in Indonesia," Swire says.

"In 1988, on the night before the Lockerbie event, we now know, though the Zeist trial court did not, that Heathrow airport was broken into, close to where the bags for the Lockerbie flight were assembled the following evening.

"Although reported immediately in its night security log, the airport took no steps to find out the identity or motive of the intruder, nor to prevent any consequences. That would have entailed a costly suspension of outgoing flights on 21st December 1988."

Following the destruction of Pan Am 103, flights from Heathrow were suspended pending investigation, although knowledge of the break in did not emerge until after Abdelbaset Al Megrahi had been convicted in 2001.

"Yet during the night of 20/21 December the Heathrow night security logs had shown that a break in had occurred, about which no action was taken until after 7.03 the following evening of 21 December.

"All we know is that Heathrow did know immediately but had failed to act, and that the Metropolitan police were actively investigating the break-in by January 1989. Therefore it is hard to believe that the Scottish police did not know throughout their more than a decade long marathon investigation.

"The priorities of Mr Walsh and, far more culpably, of the Heathrow authorities, are expressions of the ethos of modern British capitalism," Swire says.

"However the manner of conducting the Lockerbie investigation and the trial of the accused are increasingly seen to have been deeply flawed, and thus far Scotland has proved incapable of re-examining what she has done.

"The Prime Minister again and again refers to Mr Megrahi as 'the Lockerbie bomber' yet there is available now sufficient evidence to show, at the very least, that Mr Megrahi should never have been convicted in the first place."

Swire's remarks can be read in full, here.