Just after 7pm on 21 December 1988, a bomb exploded on the Boeing aircraft as it flew over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
This Sunday a new six-part drama from the BBC and Netflix, The Bombing of Pan Am 103, will premier on BBC One from 9pm recounting what happened the passenger flight and the continuing quest to bring its perpetrators to justice.
The Bombing of Pan Am 103 begins on BBC One this weekend (Photo: Kevin Baker,/Mark Mainz:BBC/World Productions)
Pan Am flight 103 was a transatlantic flight from London to New York, which set off from Heathrow just after 6pm on the evening of 21 December 1988.
Passengers and their luggage arriving in London from Frankfurt had transferred to a different aeroplane for the next leg.
Just after 7pm, the Pan Am flight, now flying at 31,000 feet above south west Scotland, lost contact with Scottish Air Traffic Control.
Wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 on the ground in Lockerbie (Photo: Tom Stoddart Archive/Getty)There was no time for emergency procedures to begin on board the aircraft, instead it plummeted to the ground as it disintegrated.
Parts of the Pan Am flight wreckage still ablaze after crashing to the ground (Photo: Daily Record/Mirrorpix/Getty)
Winds scattered victims and debris along an 81-mile-long corridor and 845 square miles in area, creating one of the largest ever crime scenes.
And in the ensuing years, investigators interviewed more than 10,000 individuals in 16 countries.
Who was responsible for the attack?
UN sanctions against Libya and negotiations with Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi secured the handover of the accused on 5 April 1999.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the murders of 270 people (Photo: Manoocher Deghat/AFP/Getty)In 2001, al-Megrahi was convicted of the murders of 270 people by the introduction of an explosive device onto a civilian aircraft. He was sentenced to life in prison.
The Libyan government formally accepted responsibility for the bombing in 2002 and agreed to pay nearly $3bn to the victims’ families.
After serving 10 years of his sentence, he was believed near death from prostate cancer and flown home to Libya.
Al-Megrahi died in 2012 (Photo: Mahmud Turkia/AFP/ Getty)
On 21 December 21 2020, 32 years after the bombing, a third person Abu Aguila Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi was charged in connection with the case in the case and arrested in 2022.
Who were the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 attack?
The explosion on board Pan Am flight 103 took the lives of 270 people in total.
A memorial to those victims, in the form of a Garden of Remembrance, has been created in the cemetery just outside the town of Lockerbie in the south west of Scotland.
The memorial to the victims of the bombimng of Pan Am flight 103 in Lockerbie (Photo: Jane Barlow/WPA Pool/Getty)Crew
Sixteen crew members were killed in the explosion including the flight’s captain James B. MacQuarrie.
Nichole Elizabeth Avonye – a French flight attendant, 44, from Croissy-Sur-Seine, France Jerry Don Avritt – an American flight engineer, 46, from Westminster, California, USA Noelle Lydie Berti – an American flight attendant, 40, from Paris, France Siv Ulla Engstrom – a Swedish flight attendant, 51 from Berkshire, UK Stacie Denise Franklin – an American flight attendant, 20, from San Diego, California, USA Paul Isaac Garrett -an American flight attendant, 41, from Napa, California, USA Elke Etha Kuehne – a German flight attendant, 43, from Hanover, Germany Maria Nieves Larracoechea – a Spanish flight attendant, 39, from Madrid, Spain James Bruce MacQuarrie – the flight’s American captain, 55, from Kensington, New Hampshire, USA Lilibeth Tobila McAlolooy – an American flight attendant, 27, from Kelsterback, Germany Mary Geraldine Murphy – the flight’s British purser, 51, from Middlesex, UK Jocelyn Reina – an American flight attendant, 26, from Isleworth, UK Myra Josephine Royal – an American flight attendant, 30, from London, UK Irja Syhnove Skabo – an American flight attendant, 38, from Oslo, Norway Milutin Velimirovich – the American chief purser, 35, from Middlesex, UK Raymond Ronald Wagner – the American first officer, 52, from Pennington, New JerseyPassengers
In total 243 passengers died, the majority of which were American and British.
Victims by nationality:
Argentina – two Belgium – one Bolivia – one Canada – three France – two Germany – three Hungary four India – three Ireland – three Israel – one Italy – two Jamaica – one Japan – one Philippines – one South Africa – one Sweden – two Switzerland – one Trinidad and Tobago – one United Kingdom – 31 United States of America – 179Also on board was the UN Commissioner for Namibia Bernt Carlsson, who was due to attended the signing ceremony of the New York Accords at the UN headquarters the following day.
Irish Olympic sailor Peter Dix, rock musician Paul Jeffreys and his wife Rachel Jeffreys and Jonathan White, the son of Bewitched actor David White, were also on board.
Lockerbie Residents
Some of the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 crashed onto the town of Lockerbie killing 11 people (Photo: Bryn Colton/Getty)Eleven residents from Lockerbie were killed when the aircraft’s fuselage made impact with the ground in the residential street of Sherwood Crescent.
Kathleen Mary Flannigan, 41, from 16 Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie Thomas Brown Flannigan, 44, from 16 Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie Joanne Flannigan, 10, from 16 Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie Dora Henrietta Henry, 56, from 13 Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie Maurice Peter Henry, 63, from 13 Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie Mary Lancaster, 81 years, from 11 Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie Jean Aitkin Murray, 82, from 14 Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie John Somerville, 40, from 15 Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie Rosaleen Somerville, 40, from 15 Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie Paul Somerville, 13, from 15 Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie Lyndsey Ann Somerville, 10, from 15 Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie Read More Details
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