1988. An aging Pan American Boeing 747 from London falls in pieces from the sky onto the small Scottish village of Lockerbie. Eleven people are killed on the ground and all 259 passengers die. The debris and what the narration discretely refers to as "human tissue" are spread over dozens of miles of lowland countryside. The disaster was a media sensation., It's quickly determined that the controls were properly set for cruising, so the next possibilities are structural failure and sabotage. The FBI joins the British investigation. Four independent terrorist groups claim credit for the crash, including on from Iran, one from Ireland, and one Palestinian organization.
These investigators, it must be said, are amazing. A Boeing 747 is made up of several million parts and the debris field is a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. But within a week, they'd found two pieces of metal from the baggage compartment that were in "the wrong place" for structural failure. Further, they determine that the pieces had been subject to an explosion and the cause is announced to the press. ONE WEEK. All the wreckage is gathered and brought to a huge shed where the airplane is reassembled. It become clear that the explosion was in the luggage compartment. They're also able to determine the height of the bomb, where it was when it exploded, which shelf of the compartment it was in. A check shows the luggage on that rack came from a connecting flight. The investigators also find a piece of a small printed circuit board in the wrong place. A close examination reveals that it was part of a two-speaker Toshiba radio and that the radio contained the bomb.
The connecting flight -- when the bomb was evidently loaded into the luggage compartment -- came from Frankfort, where German police had uncovered a similar plot with an almost identical bomb a short time before. The British examine the suitcase and find that it was a Samsonite 4000, only a few of which were sold, and all in the Middle East. The clothing packed into the suitcase was sold only in one place, the tiny island of Malta in the Mediterranean, which now becomes the focal point. The shop owner in the mall tells investigators that the customer who bought the clothing had a Libyan accent. A luggage check finds that one suitcase had been loaded aboard in Frankfort and transferred to Pan Am in London, and was placed on the same rack as the bomb. It was the same Samsonite suitcase.
A tiny piece of circuit board, half the size of a thumbnail, is recovered and is suspected of being part of the device's timer. It's sent to Washington for analysis but the FBI can find no match in its records, which stretch back for years. The FBI then asks for help from the CIA and, lo, a match shows up: a piece of a timer's circuit board identical to the one found at Lockerbie. This gets difficult to believe, but the timer is traced back to a manufacturer in Zurich, who made only a few models, all sold in Libya. It takes eleven years to identify the bomber, a high level intelligence officer in the Libyan government. A Scottish court gives him life imprisonment. Twp years later, Liby's leader, Qadaffi, officially acknowledges responsibility and pays $2.7B to the families of the victims. Pan Am was also found responsible for willful misconduct in not matching each piece of luggage to a passenger actually on board, which is what the rules required. Pam Am declares bankruptcy.
It was an astounding (and lucky) investigation that required the cooperation of several agencies from different countries. Each small contribution added to the assembling of the jigsaw puzzle. If nothing else, the solving of this disaster illustrates the need for international amity.
These investigators, it must be said, are amazing. A Boeing 747 is made up of several million parts and the debris field is a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. But within a week, they'd found two pieces of metal from the baggage compartment that were in "the wrong place" for structural failure. Further, they determine that the pieces had been subject to an explosion and the cause is announced to the press. ONE WEEK. All the wreckage is gathered and brought to a huge shed where the airplane is reassembled. It become clear that the explosion was in the luggage compartment. They're also able to determine the height of the bomb, where it was when it exploded, which shelf of the compartment it was in. A check shows the luggage on that rack came from a connecting flight. The investigators also find a piece of a small printed circuit board in the wrong place. A close examination reveals that it was part of a two-speaker Toshiba radio and that the radio contained the bomb.
The connecting flight -- when the bomb was evidently loaded into the luggage compartment -- came from Frankfort, where German police had uncovered a similar plot with an almost identical bomb a short time before. The British examine the suitcase and find that it was a Samsonite 4000, only a few of which were sold, and all in the Middle East. The clothing packed into the suitcase was sold only in one place, the tiny island of Malta in the Mediterranean, which now becomes the focal point. The shop owner in the mall tells investigators that the customer who bought the clothing had a Libyan accent. A luggage check finds that one suitcase had been loaded aboard in Frankfort and transferred to Pan Am in London, and was placed on the same rack as the bomb. It was the same Samsonite suitcase.
A tiny piece of circuit board, half the size of a thumbnail, is recovered and is suspected of being part of the device's timer. It's sent to Washington for analysis but the FBI can find no match in its records, which stretch back for years. The FBI then asks for help from the CIA and, lo, a match shows up: a piece of a timer's circuit board identical to the one found at Lockerbie. This gets difficult to believe, but the timer is traced back to a manufacturer in Zurich, who made only a few models, all sold in Libya. It takes eleven years to identify the bomber, a high level intelligence officer in the Libyan government. A Scottish court gives him life imprisonment. Twp years later, Liby's leader, Qadaffi, officially acknowledges responsibility and pays $2.7B to the families of the victims. Pan Am was also found responsible for willful misconduct in not matching each piece of luggage to a passenger actually on board, which is what the rules required. Pam Am declares bankruptcy.
It was an astounding (and lucky) investigation that required the cooperation of several agencies from different countries. Each small contribution added to the assembling of the jigsaw puzzle. If nothing else, the solving of this disaster illustrates the need for international amity.
