Pan American Flight 103: A piece of sad history
In December 21st, 1988, a terrorist bomb destroyed Pan American flight 103 killing two-hundred and seventy people. Two-hundred fifty-nine people were on board of the plane, eleven died on the ground. People that perished in the catastrophe included a Swedish UN diplomat, and Syracuse University students (Julander & Hamadé, 2011). The airplane suffered the attack above the town of Lockerbie, United Kingdom. This incident went to be nicknamed the Lockerbie Bombing.
Pan American flight 103 was operated by a Boeing 747-121 named the Clipper Maid of the Seas. The flight was transatlantic, it originated from Frankfurt, proceeded to London, then to New York, and finally Detroit. The tail read N739PA when it took off from London Heathrow with the final destination being New York. The Boeing 747 was cruising at an altitude of thirty-one thousand feet, the radar in the control tower had a single signal for the aircraft. Seven minutes went by and the radar return became more than one, the radar was showing multiple signals from the aircraft. Communication stopped, and the worst was to be assumed. Debris from the aircraft fell into the calm town of Lockerbie. The aircraft was spread along one nautical mile across the previously tranquil town of Scotland (Cooper, 1990). The Clipper Maid of the Seas was lost, and an explanation was going to be demanded for what happened.
The explosion inside the aircraft was catastrophic as it punched a hole on the left side of the fuselage. The hole had a fifty-centimeter diameter which caused uncontrolled decompression of the fuselage. The Federal Aviation Administration, after a thorough investigation, was able to conclude that no emergency procedures were started in the cockpit (Cox & Foster, 1992). The explosion disrupted the steering cables and made the nose pitch go downwards and to the left. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch from the British Department of Transportation concluded that the nose was separated from the fuselage three seconds after the explosion (Cox & Foster, 1992). There was nothing that the pilots could have done to avoid this miserable crisis.
It was clear that this was a catastrophic event that should never happen again, someone had to be responsible for this. The Central Intelligence Agency analyzed who could be responsible for this. On the day after the incident (December 22) the CIA had not received enough evidence to clearly state that it was a bombing, nevertheless, they did not rule out the possibility that a bomb was behind the crash. Several groups claimed responsibility for the alleged bombing such as The Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, The Jihad Organization, The Ulster Defense League, and several anonymous callers with demands (Directorate Of Intelligence, 1988). It was clear that there could just be one group or person responsible for the attack. The CIA believed the most credible claim came from the Guardians of The Islamic Revolution. The pro-Iranian group had claimed several attacks before. These include an Air France flight from Frankfurt being hijacked, an assassination attempt on a Sha Cabinet Minister in London, and a bombing of a vehicle belonging to a German business involved with missile technology (Directorate Of Intelligence, 1988). It was clear that this group had the power and means to pursue the bombing on a plane.
On December the fifth, an anonymous call made to a US diplomatic facility stated that a bombing attempt would be made to a Pan American aircraft. The call specifically stated that the flight would originate in Frankfurt and end in the United States. The Federal Aviation Administration was warned about this threat. The security was indeed enhanced on Pan American flights originating from Frankfurt. Unfortunately, it was not enough to prevent the catastrophe that took place. The CIA could not attribute the terrorist attack to a specific group yet, more research needed to be conducted (Directorate Of Intelligence, 1988).
An attack like this was unprecedented, therefore a lot of resources had to be used to fully understand what happened. It was the world’s most lethal and intricate attack until that time. A lot of manpower was required to gather all the pieces that detached from the plane. Pieces of the plane were spread between eight-hundred forty-five square miles, across the countryside of Scotland. During the investigation, ten-thousand individuals were interviewed to have a better picture of the facts. The interviews were conducted internationally, as this attack was planned from another part of the world. To do this, one agency was not enough. Authorities from the United States, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Great Britain participated in this effort to solve the attack (FBI, 2003). The incident’s initial investigation was led by the smallest police force in the United Kingdom, the Dumfries Galloway Constabulary. Ultimately, an international collaboration led to the discovery of the guilty party.
The investigation lasted eleven years, in which evidence was gathered and analyzed carefully to determine the guilty party. The preceding year, months later after the incident, a shirt was found. This shirt contained a small fragment which belonged to the main circuit board that was used to detonate the bomb (CIA, 2012). Luckily, the heat of the explosion had managed to fuse the shirt and the circuit board which led to the recovery of the object in question. Analysis conducted by a CIA Director of Science & Technology (electronics expert) concluded that the device belonged to the Libyans. A previous terrorist attack perpetrated by the Libyans had used the same design of the device to detonate a bomb. The device was traced to the manufacturer, a Swiss company that sold the electronic to high-level Libyan intelligence agents (Lardner, 1991).
Authorities identified two suspects: Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi which was a Libyan intelligence officer, and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah which was a station manager at Malta International Airport (FBI, 2003). The suspects had obtained Air Malta luggage tags, they were used to route the luggage to Frankfurt International Airport. Once the suitcase was in Frankfurt, it was placed on Pan Am flight 103. This was made possible by Basset’s connections and extensive experience in civil aviation (Lardner, 1991).
Extensive investigations and research led to the Libyans being charged in the United States and in Scotland. The Libyans were charged with one-hundred eighty-nine murder charges, conspiracy, putting a destructive device on a United States civil aircraft, and destroying a vehicle in a foreign commerce (Lardner, 1991). Libya refused to extradite the suspects to face the charges in Scottish or American courts. After years of the United Nations imposing sanctions on Libya, the Libyans decide that the suspects would face a fair trial in a neutral country (Brown, 2001). The suspects appear on trial on May 3, 2000. The trial is held at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands under Scottish law (Brown, 2001). During the trial the suspects wanted their sentences reduced, but this petition was denied. A CIA’s electronics expert was called as a witness in the trial, he identified the device used and this was crucial to the conviction. The defense of the perpetrators was based on the pretenses that the device belonged to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, but this was not true. The expert witness from the CIA demonstrated that device used, was, in fact, Libyan (CIA, 2012).
The trial was made possible by an international collaboration, they were all drawn by a common objective: justice. After all the facts being presented to the court, the verdict was given to the perpetrators. Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi was found guilty and given a life sentence to be served in Glasgow, Scotland (Verdict, 2001). Lamen Khalifa Fhimah was found not guilty by the court (Verdict, 2001). Shortly after the trial, the Libyan government formally accepted responsibility for the bombing and agreed to pay almost three billion dollars to the families of the victims (FBI, 2003).This trial was one of the most followed internationally due to the consequences of the bomb that was planted. Many lives were lost and that is something unfathomable. An incident such as this should not occur, but unluckily more have happened since the Clipper Maid of the Seas was bombed.
Years later, Basset was released from his conviction on compassionate grounds on August 18, 2009. He was released because he was dying from prostate cancer and President Obama called this a mistake. Basset is the only person convicted for the crime on Pan Am flight 103 (Adam, 2009). When Basset arrived in Libya, he was met with hundreds of people waving Libyan and Scottish flags. Many people believe he should not have been released, Basset did not show compassion to his victims, therefore, none should be shown to him (Adam, 2009).
Government agencies across the world cooperated in harmony to solve this crime. Ultimately, the important thing is to bring peace to the families that had to suffer from this horrible wrongdoing. The families will always feel that hole in their lives, but at least they know that authorities did everything in their power to vindicate them and hold someone responsible for the unthinkable. Aviation has always been an inspiration, but incidents like this make people fear the worst. That fear has to be eradicated in some way. There will come a day when we all feel safe, but until then, we have to learn from our past mistakes.