A brand-new drama series based on the Lockerbie disaster of 1988 is soon to be released. This global event series is based on the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and the search for justice by Dr Jim Swire and his wife Jane, who tragically lost their beloved daughter, Flora, in the devastating event. On 21st December 1988, 259 passengers and crew were killed when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie 38 minutes after take-off, with a further 11 residents losing their life as the plane came down over the quiet, Scottish town. Neil Drysdale looks back on this tragic event and how the tragedy has shaped so many and created bonds across the world.
The words were all the more horrific for being spoken softly. As one Lockerbie resident recalled: “There was this enormous crump. And then there was a whoosh and, suddenly the whole sky turned orange, and there were flames hundreds of feet up into the air.”
It was at just after 7pm on Wednesday, December 21 1988, when life changed irrevocably for the people of the little Scottish community and the passengers and crew of Pan Am flight 103 whose fates collided with devastating consequences. The following day, a combination of shock, horror and incomprehension permeated the townspeople, 11 of whom were among the 270 who died in the conflagration.
In these circumstances, one might imagine there would be controversy over Sky’s decision to create a TV drama about the disaster. Yet, the five-part series, which is being screened in the from January 2, 2025, has the backing of most local people because it portrays the anguish of Dr Jim Swire and his wife Jane, who lost their daughter, Flora, and have been seeking answers for more than 35 years. In the programme, he’s played by Colin Firth, who won an Oscar for his role in The King’s Speech, and the script is based on a book co-written by Dr Swire. It is moving, it is poignant – and angry about claims of repeated cover-ups by authorities on both sides of the Atlantic.
At the time, the overriding impression for any journalist arriving at the scene was of a community numb with grief and loss. One of the residents said simply after surveying the wreckage in Sherwood Crescent: “They were here one minute. Then they were gone.” A decade later, I returned to Lockerbie and discovered that, although a veneer of normality had returned, allied to an impressive house rebuilding programme and the creation of new leisure facilities, the atrocity was still taking its toll. This is one thing which those unfamiliar with tragedy may struggle to fathom, but the ripples extended in every direction. Some people simply never recovered. And their names deserve to be remembered more than any bomb-maker.
Dreadful human toll
In the decades since the atrocity occurred, just one man – Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – was convicted at Kamp Zeist, a Scottish court which convened in the Netherlands in 2000. Al-Megrahi died from prostate cancer in 2012 after controversially being allowed to return home on compassionate grounds to Libya, but many people, including the relatives of some of the families who lost loved ones, were never wholly convinced he was a major figure in the conspiracy. The bereaved have different opinions and the majority are not experts in international diplomacy. What do they do recognise is the dreadful human toll of the outrage and how, while Pan Am went out of business, even as other air companies boasted of their exemplary safety record, the impact of those on the flight and in Lockerbie brought sustained agony.
Kathleen Flannigan, 41, her husband, Thomas, 44, and their 10-year-old daughter, Joanne, were all killed instantly when an explosion ripped through their house at 16 Sherwood Crescent. Their bodies were never found; they had been atomised in the blast. Their 14-year-old son, Steven, witnessed a fireball engulfing his home from a neighbour’s garage. Their other son, David, 19, was in Blackpool at the time and was forced to confront a scene straight from a Dore vision of hell. He later turned to alcohol and drugs and died from heart failure in Thailand in 1993, aged just 24.
Steven, meanwhile, despite seeking a fresh start in England, couldn’t avoid being a prisoner of the past. He died in August, 2000, struck by a train in Wiltshire. A whole family had been devastated by what happened on that December night.
It is therefore hardly surprising that Lockerbie remains inextricably linked with something terrible, as do the likes of Dunblane, Sandy Hook, Aberfan, Virginia Tech… other places which were thrust into the spotlight because of disaster and catastrophe. But what has impressed many is the determination of most members of the community not to be frozen in time, not to remain vengefully obsessed towards those who perpetrated the attack. As one resident told me: “We had to start again and find things to do to take our minds off it. But there were so many young people killed (including 35 students from Syracuse University in New York) that we recognised others were a lot worse off than us. We knew their families would want to come here and try to make sense of what had happened. So, we made up our minds to be there for them in whatever way we could.”
Shared solace
This month, on the 36th anniversary, wreaths will be laid at a memorial garden in Lockerbie and ceremonies will also be held at Syracuse University and Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The residents, including retired priest Patrick Keegans, who was in Lockerbie when it happened, will never forget, but he wants to look forward as well as back. As he said: “It doesn’t go away, it stays with people, especially those who have lost family. But it’s part of our life now. We don’t live sad, miserable lives, but there’s a constant undercurrent. The memories stay with me, they are part and parcel of who I am now.”
At least, he was spared. So, too, was Kara Weipz, from New Jersey, who lost her 20-year-old brother, Rick Monetti, one of the Syracuse students. The mother-of-three, who is president of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 group, shares Mr Keegans’ feelings of tristesse, but she is also proud of the links which have been created and nurtured between the United States and Scotland. She said: “We can’t change things, we can’t bring them back, but we can look at the fact that we have always honoured them in the way we live our lives and the things we do. Yes, the sadness takes many forms, but myself and others are also looking at what we have done in the last 30 years and how we have come together, enacted change, created our own family, and been there for one another.”
William Paul, former chief reporter of Scotland on Sunday, was involved in the Lockerbie case from that first dreadful evening when the sky rained fire over town and countryside through to the drama of the guilty verdict in the special court in the Netherlands. He told me: “I followed the Lockerbie investigation with all its twists and turns from first confirmation that a bomb had brought down the plane to the unlikely courtroom at the old Cold War base at Camp Zeist. Armoured glass separated the three robed judges and huddles of legal teams from families of the victims and of the accused in rows of cinema-style seating. A tale was told of international power politics and intrigue, of casual criminality and high statesmanship. But when the guilty verdict was pronounced, there was a strong feeling among observers that we had not uncovered the whole truth. It was almost a sense of disappointment, an acknowledgement that matters did not end there, that there was more to come.”
The pain will never be extinguished. But relatives from both countries have spoken of how the bonds of love are stronger than hate and described how, even in their suffering, they have found a shared solace. They will not let terrorism win. And if the new drama offers them any breakthrough, it will have served its purpose.
Lockerbie: A Search for Truth premieres Thursday 2 January 2025 on Sky Atlantic and Now in the United Kingdom and Ireland, on Peacock in the United States and on Binge & Hubbl in Australia.