Lorraine Kelly has revealed she has erased memories from the "horrific" scenes she witnessed while reporting on the Lockerbie tragedy in 1988.
The TV presenter appeared on Tuesday's edition of Good Morning Britain, where she spoke about her new documentary, Return To Lockerbie With Lorraine Kelly, which sees the journalist journey back to the small Scottish border town to find out how the residents coped with the aftermath of the deadly terror attack.
© ITVLorraine was one of the first reporters to arrive on the scene after Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in the air, killing all 259 people aboard the plane and 11 on the ground. It is the deadliest terrorist incident to have occurred on British soil.
Whilst speaking to hosts Susanna Reid and Ed Balls, Lorraine opened up about the shocking aftermath, revealing she had "erased" certain images from her memory.
Describing the moment that she and her team pulled up to the wreckage in their car, she detailed: "There were pieces of metal all over the main road. Very quickly you realised this was huge, enormous.
© ITV"Then driving past, it's weird because your mind plays tricks on you. I remember it taking ages to get to the nose cone [of the plane] but actually it was very close to the road and there was nobody else there, just us."
She continued: "It was utterly surreal and horrific. I must say I have erased a lot of it because you can't live with those images I don't think. I was only reporting on it, I wasn't caught up in it. I wasn't some of the very, very young members of the rescue services that had to go out and retrieve bodies.
© ITV"That was the thing about the rescue services, they were absolutely distraught because their job is to rescue people and help them but they couldn't because everyone was dead."
Lorraine later expanded on the mental toll, revealing that the smell of aviation fuel brings back memories.
"I don't feel like I was traumatised in that sense, I was only reporting on it and bearing witness but something like that does stay with you," she said.
In a previous interview with The Telegraph, Lorraine revealed she has nightmares about what she witnessed. "Often times I am above it, like a drone, looking down. That is really awful," she explained.
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The upcoming ITV documentary, which airs on Wednesday 15 November at 9pm, sees Lorraine return to Lockerbie for the first time since reporting on the horrific event.
The synopsis reads: "Confronting her own difficult memories, Lorraine returns to try to understand what happened to Lockerbie and its people once the TV cameras went home."
