Lockerbie bombing

Pan Am Flight 103 was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. The transatlantic leg of the route was operated by ''Clipper Maid of the Seas'', a Boeing 747-121 registered N739PA. Shortly after 19:00 on 21 December 1988, while the aircraft was in flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, it was destroyed by a bomb that had been planted on board, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew in what became known as the Lockerbie bombing. Large sections of the aircraft crashed in a residential street in Lockerbie, killing 11 residents. With a total of 270 fatalities, it is the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United Kingdom, as well as its deadliest aviation disaster.

Following a three-year joint investigation by Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), arrest warrants were issued for two Libyan nationals in November 1991. In 1999, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi handed over the two men for trial at Camp Zeist, the Netherlands, after protracted negotiations and UN sanctions. In 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, was jailed for life after being found guilty of 270 counts of murder in connection with the bombing. In August 2009, he was released by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He died in May 2012 as the only person to be convicted for the attack.

In 2003, Gaddafi accepted Libya's responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the families of the victims, although he maintained that he had never given the order for the attack. Acceptance of responsibility was part of a series of requirements laid out by a UN resolution for sanctions against Libya to be lifted. Libya said it had to accept responsibility due to Megrahi's status as a government employee.

During the First Libyan Civil War in 2011, former Minister of Justice Mustafa Abdul Jalil claimed that the Libyan leader had personally ordered the bombing, though this was later denied, while investigators have long believed that Megrahi did not act alone, and have been reported as questioning retired Stasi agents about a possible role in the attack.

Some relatives of the dead, including Lockerbie campaigner Jim Swire, believe the bomb was planted at Heathrow Airport, and not sent via feeder flights from Malta, as per the US and UK governments. A sleeper cell belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (General Command) had been operating in West Germany in the months before the Pan Am bombing.

In 2020, US authorities indicted the Tunisia resident and Libyan national Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi for participating in the bombing, who was 37 years old at the time of the bombing, and in December 2022, they obtained custody of him.

Aircraft

The aircraft operating Pan Am Flight 103 was a Boeing 747-121, registered and named ''Clipper Maid of the Seas''; prior to 1979, it had been named ''Clipper Morning Light''. It was the 15th 747 built, and was delivered in February 1970, one month after the first 747 entered service with Pan Am. In 1978, as ''Clipper Morning Light'', it had appeared in "Conquering the Atlantic", the fourth episode of the BBC Television documentary series ''Diamonds in the Sky'', presented by Julian Pettifer.

Flight

Pan Am 103 originated as a feeder flight at Frankfurt Airport, West Germany, using a Boeing 727 and the flight number PA103-A. Both Pan Am and TWA routinely changed the type of aircraft operating different legs of a flight. PA103 was bookable as either a single Frankfurt–New York or a Frankfurt–Detroit itinerary, though a scheduled change of aircraft took place in London's Heathrow Airport.

After the bombing, the flight number was changed, in accordance with standard practice among airlines after disasters. Within days, the Frankfurt–London–New York–Detroit route was being served by Pan Am Flight 3 until the company's demise in 1991.

Explosion and collision timeline

Departure

On its arrival at Heathrow Terminal 3 on the day of the disaster, the passengers and their luggage (as well as an unaccompanied suitcase which was part of the interline luggage on the feeder flight) were transferred directly to ''Clipper Maid of the Seas'', whose previous flight had originated in Los Angeles and arrived via San Francisco. The plane, which operated the flight's transatlantic leg, pushed back from the terminal at 18:04 and took off from runway 27R at 18:25, bound for New York JFK Airport and then Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. Contrary to many popular accounts of the disaster (though repeated, with reference, below), the flight, which had a scheduled gate departure time of 18:00, left Heathrow airport on time.

Loss of contact

At 18:58, the aircraft established two-way radio contact with Shanwick Oceanic Area Control in Prestwick on 123.95 MHz.

''Clipper Maid of the Seas'' approached the corner of the Solway Firth at 19:01, and crossed the coast at 19:02 UTC. On scope, the aircraft showed transponder code, or "squawk", 0357 and flight level 310. At this point, the ''Clipper Maid of the Seas'' was flying at on a heading of 316° magnetic, and at a speed of calibrated airspeed. Subsequent analysis of the radar returns by RSRE concluded that the aircraft was tracking 321° (grid) and travelling at a ground speed of .

At 19:02:44, Alan Topp, the clearance delivery officer at Shanwick, transmitted its oceanic route clearance. The aircraft did not acknowledge this message. ''Clipper Maid of the Seas'' "squawk" then flickered off. Air traffic control tried to make contact with the flight, with no response. Then a loud noise was recorded on the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) at 19:02:50. Five radar echoes fanning out appeared, instead of one.Cox, Matthew, and Foster, Tom. (1992) ''Their Darkest Day: The Tragedy of Pan Am 103'', .page 67. Comparison of the CVR to the radar returns showed that, eight seconds after the explosion, the wreckage had a spread. A British Airways pilot, flying the London–Glasgow shuttle near Carlisle, called Scottish authorities to report that he could see a huge fire on the ground.

Disintegration of aircraft

The explosion punched a 50 cm (20 in) hole on the left side of the fuselage. Investigators from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) concluded that no emergency procedures had been started in the cockpit. The CVR, located in the tail section of the aircraft, was found in a field by police searchers within 24 hours. No distress call was recorded; a 180-millisecond hissing noise could be heard as the explosion destroyed the aircraft's communications center. The explosion in the aircraft hold was magnified by the uncontrolled decompression of the fuselage - a large difference in pressure between the aircraft's interior and exterior. The aircraft's elevator- and rudder-control cables had been disrupted and the fuselage pitched downwards and to the left.

Investigators from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch of the British Department for Transport concluded that the nose of the aircraft was blown off and separated from the main fuselage within three seconds of the explosion. The nose cone was briefly held on by a band of metal, but facing aft, like the lid of a can. It then sheared off, up, and backwards to starboard, striking off the number-three engine and landing some distance outside the town, on a hill in Tundergarth.

Fuselage impact

The fuselage continued moving forward and down until it reached , when its dive became nearly vertical. Due to the extreme flutter, the vertical stabilizer disintegrated, which in turn produced large yawing movements. As the forward fuselage continued to disintegrate, the flying debris tore off both of the horizontal stabilizers, while the rear fuselage, the remaining three engines, and the fin torque box separated. The rear fuselage, parts of the baggage hold, and three landing gear units landed at Rosebank Crescent. The fuselage consisting of the main wing box structure landed in Sherwood Crescent, destroying three homes and creating a large impact crater. The of jet fuel ignited by the impact started fires, which destroyed several additional houses. Investigators determined that both wings had landed in the Sherwood Crescent crater, saying, "the total absence of debris from the wing primary structure found remote from the crater confirmed the initial impression that the complete wing box structure had been present at the main impact."

The British Geological Survey away at Eskdalemuir registered a seismic event at 19:03:36 measuring 1.6 on the moment magnitude scale, which was attributed to the impact. According to the report, the rest of the wreckage composed of "the complete fuselage forward of approximately station 480 to station 380 and incorporating the flight deck and nose landing gear was found as one piece in a field approximately east of Lockerbie." This field, located opposite Tundergarth Church, is where the wreckage most easily identified with images of the accident in the media fell, having fallen "almost flat on its left side, but with a slight nose-down attitude."

Victims

All 243 passengers and 16 crew members were killed, as were 11 residents of Lockerbie on the ground. Of the 270 total fatalities, 190 were American citizens and 43 were British citizens. Nineteen other nationalities were represented, with four or fewer passengers per country."Pan Am 103." '' Mayday''.

Crew

Flight 103 was under the command of Captain James B. MacQuarrie (55), a Pan Am pilot since 1964 with almost 11,000 flight hours, of which over 4,000 had been accrued in 747 aircraft. He previously served three years in the U.S. Navy and five years in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, where he held the rank of major. First Officer Raymond R. Wagner (52), a pilot with Pan Am since 1966 with almost 5,500 hours in the 747 and a total of nearly 12,000 hours, had previously served eight years in the New Jersey National Guard. Flight Engineer Jerry D. Avritt (46), who joined Pan Am in 1980 after 13 years with National Airlines, had more than 8,000 hours of flying time, with nearly 500 hours in the 747. The cockpit crew was based at JFK.

Six of the 13 cabin crew members became naturalized US citizens while working for Pan Am. The cabin crew was based at Heathrow and lived in the London area or commuted from around Europe. All were originally hired by Pan Am and seniority ranged from 9 months to 28 years.

The captain, first officer, flight engineer, a flight attendant and several first-class passengers were found still strapped to their seats inside the nose section when it crashed in Tundergarth. A flight attendant was found alive by a farmer's wife, but died before help could be summoned. Some passengers may have remained alive briefly after impact; a pathologist's report concluded that at least two of these passengers might have survived if they had been found soon enough.

Passengers

Syracuse University students

Thirty-five of the passengers were students from Syracuse University, who participated in the university's Division of International Programs Abroad (abbreviated as "DIPA Program" and renamed to "Syracuse University Abroad" in 2006, while also known as "Syracuse Abroad" and "Study Abroad Program") and were returning home for Christmas following a semester in Syracuse's London and European campuses. Ten of these students were from other universities and colleges (including but not limited to Colgate University and University of Colorado) with collaborative relationships with Syracuse.

Many of their bodies were found at Rosebank Crescent, from Sherwood Crescent. The rear fuselage of the plane, where many of them sat, destroyed one of the houses of Rosebank Crescent, 71 Park Place, the home of Lockerbie resident Ella Ramsden, who survived. The bodies of two of these students were never recovered.

Notable passengers

Prominent among the passenger victims was the 50-year-old UN Commissioner for Namibia (then South West Africa), Bernt Carlsson, who would have attended the signing ceremony of the New York Accords at the UN headquarters the following day. James Fuller, an American automotive executive who worked for Volkswagen, was returning home from a meeting with Volkswagen executives in Germany. Also aboard was Irish Olympic sailor Peter Dix and rock musician Paul Jeffreys and his wife.

US government officials

Aboard the flight were U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Special Agent
Daniel Emmett O'Connor
an
Ronald Albert Lariviere
Matthew Gannon, the Central Intelligence Agency's deputy station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, was sitting in seat 14J, which is located in the business class (branded as "Clipper Class") cabin. A group of US intelligence specialists was on board the flight. Their presence gave rise to speculations and conspiracy theories that one or more of them had been targeted.

Lockerbie residents

Eleven Lockerbie residents on Sherwood Crescent were killed when the wing section hit the house at 13 Sherwood Crescent at more than and exploded, creating a crater long and with a volume of . The property was completely destroyed and its two occupants were killed. Their bodies were never found. Several other houses and their foundations were destroyed, and 21 others were damaged beyond repair.

A family of four was killed when their house at 15 Sherwood Crescent exploded. A couple and their daughter were killed by the explosion in their house at 16 Sherwood Crescent. Their son witnessed a fireball engulfing his home from a neighbour's garage, where he had been repairing his sister's bicycle. The other Lockerbie residents who died were two widows aged 82 and 81, who also both lived in Sherwood Crescent; they were the two oldest victims of the disaster. The bodies of both 15 Sherwood Crescent children and both 16 Sherwood Crescent parents were never recovered.

Patrick Keegans, Lockerbie's Roman Catholic priest, was preparing to visit friends around 7:00 that evening with his mother, having recently been appointed a parish priest of the town. Keegans' house at 1 Sherwood Crescent was the only one on the street that was not either destroyed by the impact or gutted by fire. According to a BBC article on the fire published in 2018, Keegans had gone upstairs to make sure that he had hidden his mother's Christmas present, and recalls, "Immediately after that, there was an enormous explosion". The same source claims that, following this, "the shaking stopped and to his surprise he was uninjured". Keegans' mother was also unharmed, having been shielded from debris by a refrigerator-freezer.

Many of the passengers' relatives, most of them from the US, arrived there within days to identify the dead. Volunteers from Lockerbie set up and staffed canteens which stayed open 24 hours a day and offered relatives, soldiers, police officers, and social workers free sandwiches, hot meals, beverages, and counseling. The people of the town washed, dried, and ironed every piece of clothing that was found once the police had determined they were of no forensic value, so that as many items as possible could be returned to the relatives. The BBC
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