Pan Am Flight 103
Pan Am Flight 103, a Boeing 747 flying from London Heathrow to New York, was destroyed by a bomb in its forward cargo hold over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988. All 259 people on board and 11 residents of Lockerbie were killed, and a Libyan intelligence officer was later convicted of their murder.
The sequence of events
All times local
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18:04
Pushback at Heathrow
After a six-hour turnaround, the 747 left its stand at Terminal 3. Many passengers, with their baggage, had connected from a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt.
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18:25
Takeoff
Flight 103 took off from runway 27R, with 243 passengers and 16 crew, and climbed north-west towards Scotland.
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18:56
Level at 31,000 ft
The aircraft levelled off at flight level 310 north-west of the Pole Hill beacon. About seven minutes later Shanwick Oceanic began transmitting its Atlantic clearance.
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Watch this moment · 3:58
The bomb detonates
An improvised explosive device in a baggage container on the left side of the forward hold exploded. The cockpit recorder ended with a loud bang, the secondary radar return disappeared, and the nose separated within two to three seconds.
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Watch this moment · 7:45
Wreckage falls on Lockerbie
Most of the aircraft broke up as it fell nearly vertically. The wing section struck the Sherwood Crescent area of Lockerbie, creating a large crater and fireball, while the nose landed in the countryside east of the town. All 259 people on board and 11 residents were killed.
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Watch this moment · 5:28
Declared a bombing
Forensic scientists found conclusive evidence of a detonating high explosive on recovered pieces of a baggage container, and the disaster became a criminal investigation.
Key facts
| Aircraft | Boeing 747 |
|---|---|
| Aircraft variant | Boeing 747-121, registration N739PA |
| Flight number | 103 |
| People who died | 270 |
| People on board | 259 |
| Were there survivors? | No |
| Phase of flight | Cruise |
Official finding · Air Accidents Investigation Branch, United Kingdom (AAIB)
the in-flight disintegration was caused by the detonation of an improvised explosive device in a baggage container on the left side of the forward cargo hold.
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Questions and answers
How many people died in the Lockerbie bombing?
270 people: all 243 passengers and 16 crew on Pan Am Flight 103, and 11 residents of Lockerbie killed when the wing section fell on Sherwood Crescent.
What brought down Pan Am Flight 103?
A bomb containing plastic explosive, hidden in a Toshiba radio-cassette player inside a Samsonite suitcase. The suitcase was in baggage container AVE 4041 on the left side of the forward cargo hold.
Who was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing?
Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of murder by three Scottish judges sitting at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in January 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment. His co-accused, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.
How was the bomb traced to Libya?
Clothes packed around the bomb were traced to a shop in Malta, and a fragment of circuit board smaller than a fingernail matched an MST-13 timer made by the Swiss company MEBO and supplied to Libya. In 2022 the United States arrested a former Libyan official, Abu Agila Mas'ud, accused of building the bomb.
What changed after Lockerbie?
The AAIB recommended research into making aircraft structures more tolerant of explosive damage. Airlines were held to stricter rules on matching every checked bag to a passenger on board, after a US jury found Pan Am's security failures amounted to wilful misconduct.
Sources: The facts and written text on this page come from the 2 videos on this page, by On The Move, Vornik.
