DP/10 is undoubtedly the smallest and most important piece of evidence Lockerbie experts have never heard of.
DP/508 A
Before and after the identification of PT/35(b), the police consulted a British company called Circuit Foil UK about the copper used on both PT/35b and the Thuring boards.
One of their projet managers – Michael Whitehead – looked at both PT/35(b) and DP/347(a) – The Thuring board supplied to MEBO – and concluded that the copper on the Thuring boards had been made earlier.
(Unfortunately, the police officers seemed to have completely misunderstood his statements…)
The consequences are far-reaching. His statements clearly support the theory that the board from which PT/35(b) originated was produced at a later date than the Thuring boards.
I have some reason to believe that this copper was not produced — at the earliest — before the end of 1989. If true, it would be proof that PT/35(b) was fabricated AFTER the Lockerbie tragedy. It would also destroy the “legend” that PT/35(b) was examined by Dr Hayes and Feraday in May 1989!
On 15/02/1990, Williamson and Harrower visited Yates Circuit Foils, Silloth, Cumbria, and met Michael Whitehead (S5587), chemical process manager, who analysed the copper foil used to manufacture the board from which PT/35(b) came.
Whitehead removed from PT/35(b) a tiny (in his defence precognition and his evidence Whitehead said the sample was about 1 mm X 3 mm and triangular in shape, visible to the naked eye) fragment of copper conducting track, designated DP/10, and it was treated for microscopic examination (an account of this treatment is contained in Whitehead’s defence precognition) and positioned on an examination stud, and microscopic examination of the “matt side topography” on the underside of the sample was carried out and comparison made to samples of copper foil produced by Yates and by their main competitor, Gould Electronics.
Below, you will find the three sets of pictures: PT/35(b), Gould and Yates. As pointed out by Michael Whitehead, the three samples look totally different from each other. This is rather obvious even to people with no expertise in this area.
DP/14 (From DP/10 i.e. from PT/35(b))
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DP/14 ( From Gould Electronics)
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DP/14 ( From Yates)
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On 03/09/1990, … Internal Memo from Williamson to SIO Henderson:
On 15th February 1990, Mr Michael Whitehead, Chemical Process Manager, Yates Circuit Foil, Silloth, Carlisle, carried out an examination of the copper of PT35. This test required the removal of a small sample of copper from one of its tracks and its examination and on a scanning electron microscope.
This topography showed that the matt side of the copper foil was characteristic of the foil produced by the company Gould Electronics the main competitor to Yates in this industry.
On 7th March 1990, Mr Robert Lomer, Quality Assurance Manager, Gould Electronics Limited, Southampton, examined the copper sample removed by Yates Limited but was unable to reproduce the findings of Yates and concluded that the sample which had been mounted on an examination stud had come away at some stage and been lost.
Mr Lomer removed a further sample of the copper track from PT35 and mounted it on a stud in a similar manner to that of the test carried out by Yates but again was unable to produce any results as the sample removed was unsuitable for examination.
Mr Lomer viewed photographs of the copper sample removed by Yates and the results of high magnification of that sample and was of the opinion that the matt side topography did show signs characteristic of the copper produced by Gould’s and agreed that in all probability the copper was of their manufacture.
This is beyond comprehension. Firstly, this is NOT what Whitehead told Williamson. Secondly, one wonders how Lomer could possibly see a similarity between PT/35(b) and the GOULD copper? We will come back to this but let us keep going.
After the identification of PT/35(b), the police officers returned to see Michael Whitehead. Here is the SCCRC description of this meeting:
On 06/03/1992, Police officers travelled to Circuit Foil UK (formerly Yates Circuit Foils) at Silloth, and interviewed Michael Whitehead, who examined the matt side topography of the copper tracks on DP/504 (label 406) by using a scanning electron microscope and produced 2 micrographs, A and B, designated DP/508 (prod 347).
(NB: DP/504 is a small part cut from DP/347(a) i.e. the Thuring board supplied to MEBO.)
DP/508 B
Michael Whitehead was also of the opinion that the copper foil for DP/504 was manufactured some time earlier than the copper foil for PT/35(b).
Whitehead’s manuscript statement (prod 359) gives further details of the testing he conducted, and explains that micrograph A shows in general the result of the preparation, and micrograph B shows the matt side topography of one of the peeled tracks at magnification of just in excess of 1000 times.
The statement records that the relationship of the dendrites to the base foil pyramids was representative of a product manufactured by Gould, but that the previous micrographs (DP/14) of DP/10, the sample from PT/35(b), suggested that DP/504 was manufactured earlier because the number of peaks per unit area was less that depicted for DP/10.
(NB. That is to say, this surely indicates strongly that PT/35/(b) was manufactured later than the board provided by Thuring.)
There is indeed no doubt that the copper from PT/35(b) is not similar to the copper from the Thuring boards. Moreover, the difference is understood. In the very late 80’s and well into the 90’s, the industry modified the production of the copper and the laminating process to improve the adhesion of the copper to the board. The characteristics of the copper on PT/35(b) reflect this improvement.
Notes
The Chronology of PT/35(b): 15 February 1990
The chronology of PT/35(b): 06/03/1992
Williamson Memo 03/09/90 (Copper test -Page 5)
PT35B 
Once more, careful analysis of tiny bits of evidence and expert opinions appears to show that police and other officials have misrepresented and distorted the facts. It brings us back, yet again, to the question: can all of these misrepresentations of evidence really be adequately explained by stupidity?
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“Can all of these misrepresentations of evidence really be explained by stupidity?”
In my opinion It is undoubtedly a deliberate cover up Paul. Your average D&G cop involved in the investigation probably believed they got the right guy(s) but those in at or near the top – Henderson, Marquise, Harry Bell etc must have had major suspicions that pt35b was a plant.
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Why did Dick Marquise stop Stew Henderson,Harry Bell ect from going to Universal Labs in U.S.A to look on the F.B.I’S own patch as Universal Labs have every P.C.B ever used in the U.S as they test every thing that enters the good old U.S.A.
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What does it prove? That PT/35b doesn’t originate from one of the Thuring boards. But we already knew that, didn’t we. It doesn’t prove PT/35b is planted.
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Little Swan. If PT35(b) is not part of a Thuring board, then PT35(b) is not from a MST-13 timer and is not made by MEBO. It’s true that we already know that PT35(b) wasn’t a Thuring product, by the metallurgy (100% tin) analysis. There was always a remote possibility that someone would come along and demonstrate that the 100% tin resulted from the lead content being melted/evaporated/dissolved as a result of the explosion or as a result of some chemical reaction resulting from the explosion. Of course, this has been suggested before and proved to be impossible, but two forms of proof are always better than one.
The analysis of the copper also raises questions about when it was manufactured. The SCCRC statement above puts it nicely: [Whitehead’s] “statement records that the relationship of the dendrites to the base foil pyramids was representative of a product manufactured by Gould, but that the previous micrographs (DP/14) of DP/10, the sample from PT/35(b), suggested that DP/504 was manufactured earlier because the number of peaks per unit area was less that depicted for DP/10.” What I understand this to mean is that the control sample from Thuring was manufactured BEFORE PT35(b). It begins to look as if PT35(b) was actually manufactured after 21 December 1988 – in which case, it could not have fallen out of the sky from PA 103.
And there is another element to Dr Braekeleer’s research. It appears that the police so distorted what the PCB experts actually said that the truth was turned on its head. As I asked in my earlier post (of course referencing you): is it possible that such distortions of evidence could simply be the result of police officers not being bright enough to understand the science?
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IF Ludwig is correct and he usually is and the type of copper used in PT35b can be dated 1989 -early 90s then it adds enormously to the evidence that the fragment was not found by Hayes in May 1989 as claimed. I have consistently claimed this since 2002 but following on from John Ashton’s achievements re the tinning this could be the biggest breakthrough to date.
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“In the very late 80’s and well into the 90’s, the industry modified the production of the copper and the laminating process to improve the adhesion of the copper to the board. The characteristics of the copper on PT/35(b) reflect this improvement.”
Ludwig are you saying this modification to the laminating process happened in the PCB industry after 21 December 88 and therefore pt35b could not have been onboard Pan Am 103?
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It is indeed what Michael Whitehead told the police officers. And if correct, the conclusion is indeed inescapable.
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Similar chronological anomalies apply in the case of ‘pure tin’ vs tin/lead. The change over to ‘pure tin’ in the cct board industry occurred in the years following Lockerbie, when the Japs and EU started to push for getting rid of the lead for ‘recycling’ reasons, only made mandatory in the mid 90s. Remember there are gross anomalies in the evidence as to when/where PT35b (conveniently embedded in Maltese clothing) was found, and according to Bollier at MEBO as to the colour of the fibreglass substrate originally shown to him) and that the label on the police evidence bag in which it was stated to have been found had been clumsily changed, as examined during the evidence given by the policeman Gilchrist during the trial. This ought to have cast doubt upon all aspects of the bag’s contents, since no explanation of the motivation for the illict label changed was established. Well done Ludwig, a second string to this bow is a great reassurance, but should we be referring to the bonding of the copper to substrate rather than the body of copper itself?.
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One has to bear in mind however that the “pure tin” coating on PT/35b does not appear to be the result of any industrial process, but of an amateur “electroless plating” technique using liquid tin. Williamson noted this in his memo, but unfortunately nobody seemed to pick up on what it meant. Electroless plating using liquid tin has been in use for many years for one-off amateur PCB manufacture and doesn’t have anything to do with the much later removal of the lead from the industrial alloy, done to reduce the amount of lead going into the environment.
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