The Pan Am Flight 103 air crash investigation began on December 21, 1988, shortly after seven o'clock in the evening in the small village of Lockerbie in the county of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The village is accessible by highway A74(M). There is a golf course nearby, a train station and King Edward Park.
The quiet village was changed forever. The flight originated in Frankfurt and was destined for New York City, New York, following a brief stop at London Heathrow to deposit and collect passengers for the onward journey. The aircraft blew up over the village, resulting in the loss of a total of 270 people, 11 of whom were Lockerbie residents. The crash left a six-mile trail of debris.
A few days before the crash, on December 18, the American embassies in Russia and Finland had issued warnings that a terrorist attack was planned on a Pan American airliner traveling from Frankfurt to the United States. Although the airline and the relevant police departments had been notified of the warning, it was not broadly broadcast to prospective passengers. Among the people who were supposed to be on the flight but changed their minds or were prevented at the last minute were South African foreign minister Pik Botha, Indian mechanic Jaswant Basuta (initially considered a suspect) and popular US singing group, the Four Tops.
Records showed that an unaccompanied piece of luggage had been routed from Malta to Frankfurt, where it was loaded onto the feeder flight to London, Pan Am 103A. Police later discovered that the only person ever convicted of the bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, had also boarded that same flight. This was believed to be the suitcase that contained the bomb. Security was later tightened at small airports all around the world.
Careful searches of the local area during the investigation revealed almost sixty pieces of a suitcase that had evidence of extreme bomb damage. A circuit board, believed to have been part of the bomb, was located wrapped in a kid's t-shirt that was purchased in Malta. At first, when the shopkeeper in Malta was questioned as to who purchased the shirt, he said it was al-Megrahi. He later recanted this claim.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was tried in a neutral country, the Netherlands, under Scottish law. This was because the offense occurred in Scotland. The trial began in 2000 and concluded in 2001.
After a trial that lasted nine months, al-Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 27 years. In 2008, it was announced that he was suffering from terminal cancer of the prostate. In an extremely controversial decision, Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, allowed him out of prison on compassionate grounds and he was flown home to Libya. There was a massive public outcry on both sides of the Atlantic. To many observers, the Libyan people rubbed salt into the wounds by giving al-Megrahi a hero's welcome.
The Scottish contingent of the Pan Am Flight 103 air crash investigation was led by Chief Inspector Watson McAteer and John Orr. The American team consisted of CIA personnel Vince Cannistraro and Jim Shaughnessy, along with Robert Muller and Larry Whittaker. The investigators had seen the inside of 13 countries and gathered 15,000 statements, 12,700 name cards and 35,000 photographs.
The quiet village was changed forever. The flight originated in Frankfurt and was destined for New York City, New York, following a brief stop at London Heathrow to deposit and collect passengers for the onward journey. The aircraft blew up over the village, resulting in the loss of a total of 270 people, 11 of whom were Lockerbie residents. The crash left a six-mile trail of debris.
A few days before the crash, on December 18, the American embassies in Russia and Finland had issued warnings that a terrorist attack was planned on a Pan American airliner traveling from Frankfurt to the United States. Although the airline and the relevant police departments had been notified of the warning, it was not broadly broadcast to prospective passengers. Among the people who were supposed to be on the flight but changed their minds or were prevented at the last minute were South African foreign minister Pik Botha, Indian mechanic Jaswant Basuta (initially considered a suspect) and popular US singing group, the Four Tops.
Records showed that an unaccompanied piece of luggage had been routed from Malta to Frankfurt, where it was loaded onto the feeder flight to London, Pan Am 103A. Police later discovered that the only person ever convicted of the bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, had also boarded that same flight. This was believed to be the suitcase that contained the bomb. Security was later tightened at small airports all around the world.
Careful searches of the local area during the investigation revealed almost sixty pieces of a suitcase that had evidence of extreme bomb damage. A circuit board, believed to have been part of the bomb, was located wrapped in a kid's t-shirt that was purchased in Malta. At first, when the shopkeeper in Malta was questioned as to who purchased the shirt, he said it was al-Megrahi. He later recanted this claim.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was tried in a neutral country, the Netherlands, under Scottish law. This was because the offense occurred in Scotland. The trial began in 2000 and concluded in 2001.
After a trial that lasted nine months, al-Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 27 years. In 2008, it was announced that he was suffering from terminal cancer of the prostate. In an extremely controversial decision, Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, allowed him out of prison on compassionate grounds and he was flown home to Libya. There was a massive public outcry on both sides of the Atlantic. To many observers, the Libyan people rubbed salt into the wounds by giving al-Megrahi a hero's welcome.
The Scottish contingent of the Pan Am Flight 103 air crash investigation was led by Chief Inspector Watson McAteer and John Orr. The American team consisted of CIA personnel Vince Cannistraro and Jim Shaughnessy, along with Robert Muller and Larry Whittaker. The investigators had seen the inside of 13 countries and gathered 15,000 statements, 12,700 name cards and 35,000 photographs.
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