PAN AM 103 BOMBING
Thirty years ago, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 sent a shock wave around the world. In many ways, the reverberations are still being felt today.
Most Americans were awakened to the reality of terrorism on September 11, 2001, but more than a decade earlier, a few days before Christmas in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103, bound to New York from London and carrying mainly U.S. citizens, was blown out of the sky by a terrorist bomb over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie
In all, 270 souls perished. On board the aircraft were citizens of 21 countries, including 190 Americans. On the ground, 11 residents of Lockerbie were killed when the plane’s burning wings plunged into a quiet neighborhood just after dinner. Mothers and fathers, grandparents, children as young as 2 months old, and college students returning home from a study abroad program lost their lives in what was the largest terrorist attack in American history until 9/11.
The bombing, believed to be carried out by Libyan intelligence officers in retaliation for U.S. actions against then-Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, was a transformative event for the FBI, one that changed the way the Bureau investigates terrorism and assists victims of crimes.
The Investigation
Within a week of what Scottish authorities were calling the Lockerbie air disaster, it was determined that Pan Am Flight 103 had been destroyed by a bomb. But when the plane dropped out of the sky that night, no one was certain what had happened.
The Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary—then the smallest mainland police force in the United Kingdom, with fewer than two dozen of its approximately 300 officers serving Lockerbie—took command of the scene. In a matter of hours, thousands of police officers, firefighters, military personnel, and other volunteers converged on rural Lockerbie.
“There was not an emergency plan as such at the time,” said Stuart Cossar, a Police Scotland detective inspector who until his recent retirement was the deputy senior investigating officer for the ongoing investigation. “People were turning up for duty that had just finished a 10-hour shift but were prepared to come back out and work again right through the night.”
Harry Bell was a 42-year-old detective stationed near Glasgow, more than an hour away from Lockerbie. When he got news of the crash, he made his way to Lockerbie near midnight and was placed in charge of an area called Sector B. He would later lead a team of investigators that followed the evidence to Malta. Like many of his colleagues, the case consumed every minute of his professional life. When the disaster occurred, Bell’s Glasgow desk contained files of all the cases he was working on. “I left my office that night,” he said, “and I didn't get back there for three years.”
From the outset, the Scottish police treated the disaster as a crime scene and preserved everything that might be evidence. Geographical boundaries were drawn into sectors, and a dedicated team was assigned to each. Anything recovered was meticulously cataloged. “When you consider that some of the most critical exhibits, or productions, of the case were found 80 miles from Lockerbie,” Cossar said, “it shows you the scale of the search.”
“A crime scene for me was normally a house or a room or a field with a person lying in it,” said Bell, whose sector included the hard-hit Rosebank neighborhood. “This was just a catastrophe. It was like a battlefield. Nothing could have prepared you.”
Retired Special Agent Dick Marquise was assigned to lead the FBI’s investigation. He credits the Scots’ thoroughness and professionalism, under extreme circumstances, with finding critical evidence—pieces of the suitcase containing the bomb, fragments of a circuit board, bits of clothing traced to a Malta business—that led to the Libyan intelligence officers. “Sharing information and paying attention to even the smallest detail helped solve the case,” he said.
After a three-year investigation in which the FBI and Scottish authorities worked hand in hand, the British and American governments in November 1991 announced indictments and warrants for the arrests of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah. It would be nearly a decade before the Libyan government turned the two over to face trial.
Investigators believed then, as they do today, that more co-conspirators were involved in the plot.
Atlast
In 2003, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing, but didn’t express remorse. The U.N. and U.S. lifted sanctions against Libya and Libya agreed to pay each victim’s family approximately $8 million in restitution. In 2004, Libya’s prime minister said that the deal was the “price for peace,” implying that his country only took responsibility to get the sanctions lifted, a statement that infuriated the victims’ families. Pan Am Airlines, which went bankrupt three years after the bombing, sued Libya and later received a $30 million settlement.
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