I recently moderated a conversation with a friend about his book On Angels’ Wings. He was only seventeen when he lost his entire family in the bombing of Air India Flight 182, Kanishka. The book is a moving account of the tragedy and the long quest of the families for justice.

The aircraft went down off the coast of Ireland. As we spoke about the events that followed, one aspect stayed with me-the compassion shown by the local people towards the families who had travelled there after losing their loved ones. They were complete strangers, arriving in another country in circumstances nobody should ever have to face. Yet people opened not merely their doors but also their hearts to them. Their grief somehow became a shared grief.

A few weeks later, I was watching a series about another aviation tragedy-the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988. Debris was scattered over a vast area,........

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