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The True Story of Lockerbie and Pan Am Flight 103, Explained
The true story behind Peacock's Lockerbie: A Search For Truth, one of the worst airline disasters in history.
On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 took off from Heathrow airport in London headed for New York City. Approximately 38 minutes into the flight, a bomb in the cargo hold exploded, and the plane broke up over Lockerbie, Scotland. The attack claimed the lives of 259 passengers, 16 crew, and 11 Lockerbie residents.
The tragedy and the ensuing decades-long investigation are the subject of Peacock's upcoming dramatic miniseries, Lockerbie: A Search For Truth, premiering January 2, 2025. The 5-part series starring Colin Firth is based on the 2021 nonfiction book The Lockerbie Bombing: A Father’s Search for Justice, co-written by Dr. Jim Swire and Peter Biddulph. Swire’s daughter, Flora, was on Flight 103 and the series follows his lifelong crusade to honor his daughter’s memory.
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The explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland
Flight 103 arrived at Heathrow Terminal 3 on December 21, 1988. It was intended to be the middle leg of a transatlantic journey beginning in Frankfurt, Germany and ending in Detroit, Michigan, with layovers in London and New York City. The plane was loaded with passengers, their luggage, and one unaccompanied bag.
It rose to 31,000 feet and made way for the Atlantic. Shortly after 7:00 p.m. local time, an explosive went off inside the luggage compartment, blowing a 20-inch hole in the left side of the fuselage. The combined force of the explosion and the rapid decompression of the fuselage ripped the nose away from the plane. The rest of the fuselage broke into several large pieces, some of which fell on residential areas.
The plane’s wing section impacted a house at 13 Sherwood Crescent, traveling at approximately 500 miles per hour. Residents inside the house, as well as those in neighboring houses, were killed in the impact and burning aviation fuel started several fires. When the Sun rose the next morning, there were millions of pieces of wreckage spread over an area of nearly 800 square miles.
Investigators collected wreckage to reconstruct key parts of the plane and tell the story of what happened. Along the way, they uncovered pieces of a Samsonite case believed to contain the bomb, alongside clothing from inside the case. That clothing was traced to a merchant in Malta who pointed investigators to a customer. Ultimately, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah were identified as suspects and charged with the bombing.
Dr. Jim Swire’s crusade for answers about the Lockerbie bombing
Before the events of December 21, 1988, Swire was mostly a general practitioner; after, his focus shifted to shining a spotlight on the attack. Swire joined and became spokesperson for U.K. Families Flight 103, a support group and activist organization made up of victims’ families.
Swire campaigned for answers on two fronts; he wanted to identify the people responsible for the attack and highlight the gaps in airport security so it couldn’t happen again. On May 18, 1990, Swire put airport security to the test when he personally carried a fake bomb similar to the one used on Flight 103 on a flight from Heathrow to JFK, then a second flight from JFK to Boston. Instead of Semtex explosives, Swire filled his bomb with marzipan and made it to Boston free of suspicion.
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Meanwhile, Swire helped to identify security and procedural gaps which allowed the tragedy to occur. Key among them were two warnings, one on December 5 (16 days before the attack on Flight 103) and another a few days prior, which suggested an upcoming airplane attack. A memo was distributed to airlines including Pan Am, but it was misplaced and wasn’t seen by officials at Frankfurt in time.
After Megrahi and Fhimah were accused, it wasn’t immediately clear if or how they could be tried. There weren’t any extradition treaties between Libya and either the United States or United Kingdom. Eventually, the nations compromised with a trial held on neutral ground at Camp Zeist, in the Netherlands. Fhimah was acquitted based on a lack of evidence, but Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The Libyan government officially took responsibility without admitting any official sanction of the attack and agreed to pay $2.7 billion in combined restitution to the families of the victims. When the dust settled, about $2.16 billion was paid.
What might have offered some hard-won closure actually resulted in a new battle for Swire who, now 88 years old, still doesn’t believe Megrahi was responsible for the attack. Swire focused his attention on getting Megrahi out of prison, considering his conviction a miscarriage of justice. “My belief is that U.K. and U.S. governments lied about the way this was carried out,” Swire told Sky. “Over the years as the U.K. Families group, all that we have done is try to go behind the scenes to make up our own minds.”
Swire points to inconsistencies in the evidence for Megrahi’s conviction, including that the case relied largely on the testimony of the Maltese shopkeeper. The shop owner identified Megrahi, but only after seeing Megahi’s picture in a magazine, listed as a potential suspect. He also stated that it was raining and there were no Christmas lights on the day Megrahi was at his shop. However, Megrahi was only in Malta for one day and the evidence suggests it wasn’t raining, and the nearby Christmas lights had been turned on the day before. These inconsistencies and others were enough for Megrahi’s case to get an appeal from the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission.
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That first appeal was unsuccessful and a second was abandoned just before Megrahi was released in 2009 on compassionate grounds. Megrahi had been diagnosed with cancer and died three years later. Swire became convinced that Libya and Megrahi were not behind the attack and campaigned to have the conviction overturned. It’s worth mentioning that many of the other families of the victims disagree with Swire’s interpretation of events and accept the official verdict. And, of course, the authorities maintain Megrahi’s role in the plot, but they don’t think he acted alone.
A recent arrest in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland
In 2020, Abu Agila Mas’ud was charged in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. The United States requested the help of Interpol in locating and arresting Mas’ud. He was taken into custody, pleaded not guilty, and is awaiting trial in 2025.
Mas’ud was formally indicted in November 2022. That indictment alleges that Mas’ud worked for the Libyan intelligence service from 1973 until 2011. During that time, he purportedly worked as a technical expert in the construction of explosives, among other roles. He is alleged to have delivered the suitcase containing the bomb to Megrahi and set the timer in advance of the attack. If convicted, Mas’ud faces up to life in prison.
Lockerbie premiers January 2, 2025, on Peacock.
