30 Years Later: The Impact of the Lockerbie Tragedy

Thirty years ago, pieces of a Boeing 747-121 that was carrying 243 passengers and 16 crew as Pan Am Flight 103 rained down on the village of Lockerbie, turning the picturesque Scottish town into a fiery scene of horror. The jumbo jet had broken apart in midair after a bomb in a suitcase in its hold detonated at 31,000 feet, sending flaming wreckage plummeting onto houses below. It's estimated that only two minutes elapsed between the time the device detonated and the debris slammed into Lockerbie. Everyone on the plane died, as did 11 people on the ground. The intense investigation that followed concluded that the improvised explosive device that brought down Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988, had been built and placed aboard the aircraft by Libyan intelligence agents and provided evidence that the attack had been ordered by Libya. Beyond the emotional pain suffered by the friends and families...