Investigating Lockerbie: UK's Deadliest Air Disaster 

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Denice O'Neill, age 21, was on Pan Am Flight 103. She lived across the hall from me at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and used to come over and watch TV in the evenings with me and my roommates. She was a pre-med student and was returning to the U.S. after working for two and a half months at a hospital in Nigeria. She was in seat 38K.

Chris... All the hours you spent on this story was really worth it. I think this one is your best one yet. After all these years, I heard things I didn't know. Thank You ✈

My acquaintance's father was on that flight. A very kind person. Such a loss. RIP to all the victims.

As a Scot living 60 miles from Lockerbie I can whole heartily say the biggest tragedy of Lockerbie after the deaths is that the families never got justice. That is unforgiveable.

14:29 I love how you smoothly pronounced this name without flinching.

I really apprechiate that you covered the political aspects with the same in-depth research as you do the technical aspects of the crash. It wouldve been really easy to just dismiss the political background with two sentences

I was a Police Officer, on duty that night. I spent weeks in the area, working on debris recovery: 1. The flight departed late, otherwise this would have occurred over the sea, destroying most of the evidence. 2. The myth of the living stewardess is just that. 3. FBI and CIA agents, dressed as PanAm technicians, inftrated the subsequent search, and other police officers say they 'seeded' the scene with 'evidence'. 4. There were two debris streams, stretching right across the country and reaching the North Sea. 5. Many of the passengers were US college students from Syracruse, and recovering their named possessions was heartbreaking. 6. The convicted 'bomber' was almost certainly innocent. 7. The bombing was probably revenge for the US shooting down a civilian Iranian airliner.

A thorough and sensitively produced account of this abject tragedy. Good work!

My cousin "Geordie" Williams was on that flight. He had been stationed at the military base in Germany, and was on his way back to Joppatown, MD for the holidays. His father, George Williams, fought until his death in 2012 for the truth about the Libya connection to not only come out, but for the bomber to serve out his entire sentence. The most horrible thing I remember overhearing was when he was telling others in my family that the press reporting that everyone on board was already dead or unconscious was false, and that everyone was alive and very conscious until the end. Thank you for your work reporting on this horrible situation.

Stellar work covering a disturbing topic. Thankyou!

I had no idea one person managed to survive the initial fall! That is crazy... Rest in peace to all those who perished and great video as always airspace.

It was proven in an international criminal court in the Hague that Libya and Gaddafi were not behind the bombing, after that he decided to help clear his name by paying the family of the victims. Enough said...

Very good video. Being Scottish myself, this holds a special place in my heart. Thank you.

A fantastic account of such a complicated affair, I imagine it must have taken tens of hours if not hundreds to research all this. Thank you for your work, cheers mate!

Thank you for the work you put into these videos, don't let RU-vid demotivate you.

Thank you for covering the Lockerbie tragedy. Very well done! I still remember when it happened, the absolute horror of it. I didn’t find out until much later what the residents of Lockerbie did after the crash, how they handled everything connected to this bombing. Their compassion was second to none. I saw a video on RU-vid a while ago that focused on just what the residents did. Such selfless people! There are so many “me first” people in the world, especially in government. And then there are those who do more than the right thing, not needing any accolades. They quietly go about their business, with Selbstverständlichkeit, because they love people. Thank you so much for mentioning the wonderful people of Lockerbie! ❤

I was always wondering about the details in this bombing but thanks to your video, now I'm aware. May God bless the victims and give their loved ones closure.

There have been sevral prior incidents of terrorists sending bombs in baggage while not getting on board of the targeted planes themselves, such as the bombing of Air India Flight 182 by Sikh separatists 3 years prior to PanAm 103, yet, the rules regulating this risk were not strictly followed, truly sad. And, as Philippine Airlines Flight 434 would show six years later, even the Lockerbie bombing was not enough to eliminate this risk.

RIP To the passengers and crew of Pan Am Flight 103 and the 11 people on the ground

Thanks Airspace. Not an easy event to cover, horrific, tragic & sad for all concerned.

Outstanding discussion of the events and the wider political circumstances which led to them. You have a genuine gift for this.

My papa was one of the rescuers. And he planned it out due to he's an architect. He came back on Christmas day and was never the same. He used to be a bright person but now he's just a shell of himself

The fact that Pan Am is still to this date the only plane company that has 2 Boeing 747 fatal crashes and both could've been avoided

Thank you for coming back to your wonderful video productions Mr. Airspace

Should not have been released on compassionate grounds. Why should he get to enjoy the last 3 years of his life with his family when those poor families never got to spend another minute with their loved ones.

I remember reading a book on the SAS who went to search for basically the remains of the aircraft and of the passengers. The thing that really struck horror to me was the fact that the pilot and co-pilot were found stock together like siamese twins. What the people involved had to go through is beyond me.

I drove past the town on my way home to Greenisland in Northern Ireland two days before this happened.

Man the crater that wing left is just unimaginable to conceive

keep it up, always great coming back to your videos!

Very informative video. There were many things about this incident that I did not know. Thanks for an informative video like always!

Good to see you again and thanks for covering this one. Given the precedent with this one, it was awesome that you covered a lot of the backstory/political side of it!

I was nine and we drove to our friends in Glasgow for Xmas from the North East of England. There was still debris and what looked like clothes on the roadside around Lockerbie. I was too young to process it. Probably for the best.

My father was an air traffic controller at the time and his colleague was the person talking to the aircraft when it all went to static and he watched the plane in the radar screen change from one blob to two and then more. He instantly knew what had happened and it completely destroyed him. He was a mess for many months.

What everyone went through that night and the sights they saw is just unimaginable and horrific.😢

Very sad about the people and their families who lost their lives in this incident

The incident in the gulf of sidra (around time 9:50) is the event that inspired the original Top Gun. Pretty cool.

Should also do an episode on the missile strike by the US of the Iranian commercial airliner over the gulf

Although tragic, this was extremely well done

My friend was a mechanic on that plane before the flight Everyone was grilled extensively to see if they were involved

I was 11 when this happened and will never forget.

Even though the area where the airplane impacted was 87 miles from my home it's still one of the most horrific tragedies in the United Kingdom

Amazing video. Keep up the great work

This video is a credit to you. Well done.

Very good video

great that you are back :)

The wreckage remains to this day at a breakers yard up the road from me.

I remember like yesterday being totally traumatised. If I never got over it imagine the people in this town and relatives of lost ones. Let it never happen again😢😢😢

Thanks!

The actual sector from Frankfurt was flown using a 727 to London, which Pan Am used to do back then. Everyone flew into Heathrow and then connected on the transatlantic legs. TWA had the same practices.

Great video. Heartbreaking story. Isn’t this baggage to passenger connection still a problem? It seems over the holidays in the US, Southwest Airlines ended up with bags piling up at baggage claims, of people whose flights were cancelled, but the bag flew anyway via another flight. I’m not in the airline industry, so I don’t understand all that transpired.

35 years ago this week...... Golly. I can still remember the horror.

It’s a remarkable coincidence that the worst air disaster and worst rail disaster ( Quintinshill ) in the United Kingdom happened in the same area of southern Scotland

I can’t comprehend how someone can survive that impact (albeit momentarily)…

I’m from Scotland but bellshill so I’m lucky

ADDENDUM: Instead of my saying "the flight departed late", I should have said "The flight would not be over open water until later", as has been correctly pointed out by others, because of the jetstream and train-Atlantic routing by Great Circle Route via Prestwick. Apologies for any confusion.

Masterful = thank you.

I remember hearing all about hoe popular pan am was back in the day so sad

What a terrible experience, way to die. Horryfying.

They needed this type of incident in order to get their already wished exit borders tightening. That's just how it works ... who knows

I wonder if you should experiment with more "catchy" titles like "The time Gaddafi blew up a passenger plane". You deserve more views!

More books have been written about PAA103 than any other aircrash investigation of that decade. Looking back at this first fatal international airline terrorist attack requires a thorough symopsis of thousands pages of historic documentation. I find it interesting to see what a younger vantage point provides when summarizing this historic airline attack. Prior to September 11th 2001 attacks, this terrorist blow to N America produced numerous political theories about its motives. I suppose if a channel is producing political science videos, and not aviation focused videos, here is one hypothesis.Albeit its narrative contains several serious misrepresentations.The author hasn’t verified dates surrounding the Airline Passenger Baggage Reconciliation Regulations nor Pan Americans international lobbying for such regulations. Im searching for other informative data within this video, sadly the misinformation overshadows the lack of any new detail tidbits. Viewers interested in details of this accident should look elsewhere for verifiable information, which is plentiful.

Anyone else get slightly irritated when he says “bom-Bing”

And RU-vid demonitized this why?

Why would anyone do that, all civilians. RIP.

The regiment I was in was involved in the clear up

Not the bombbeat radio 💀💀💀

The beginning of this video is word for word the same script as the geographic video on the same subject

A+

f- me a flight attendant made it to the ground alive? ♥️ RIP.

That was 10 years before I was born

I would also draw your attention to the little-known fact [which involved US President Reagan, senior US government politicians and intelligence services the CIA and FBI] that the US was conducting an ongoing 'drugs and money for hostages' relationship with Iran similar to the 'Iran-contra' affair of several years earlier. And that this 'arrangement' was using Pan Am as its 'carrier' to transport large quantities of heroin and money between the two countries. [this is evidenced by the fact that literally just a few hours after the downing of Pan Am 103 in Lockerbie more than 200 CIA and FBI agents were on site!] To put this into context, there were more US intelligence services personnel at the crash site and faster than police from neighbouring Scottish towns! And why were the US intelligence services there in such numbers and so quickly? To recover a suitcase packed full of heroin and another suitcase containing US$1m in cash. [these were initially found by Scottish volunteers brought in to locate bodies and important pieces of debris - before being seized by CIA and FBI agents and swiftly whisked away never to be seen again]. There is also the question as to why US Marine Major Charles 'Chuck' McKee and his team were passengers on Pan Am 103 and had loaded a large container of 'top secret' documents in the cargo hold of the plane. McKee was 'seconded' to the CIA office in Beirut and was responsible for identifying the whereabouts of US hostages and negotiating their release. However, during his tenure in Beirut, McKee became aware of the CIA's illegal activities, and being a wholly decent and honorable man, gathered up as much evidentiary documentation as possible and booked seats on the first available flights [Pan Am 103] back to the USA for himself and his team. It is now known that McKee was determined to return to the US as quickly as possible in order to expose the CIA's illegal behaviour and his unapproved leaving of his post in Beirut serves to highlight his anger at the CIA's gross transgression. It is also widely suspected by many informed sources [which obviously do not include you] that the real reason why Pan Am 103 was blown out of the sky, was to eliminate McKee and his team. This is further supported by the fact that the CIA and FBI knew weeks in advance that the PFLP-GC were planning to put a bomb on an American airliner travelling from Europe to America - and had actually stated that it was Pan Am 103. Furthermore, the CIA had taken over security controls of all Pan Am flights between Europe and the USA. [this allowed them to get drugs and large amounts of money on Pan Am's planes without any problems]. In conclusion - your documentary whilst well-made is guilty of presenting a completely biased and erroneous 'version' of the Lockerbie bombing. But worse, it does a great disservice to the likes of Dr Jim Swire and Martin Cadman as well as numerous other parties who have campaigned for justice for their dead children and family members for more than 40 years. But even blind ignorance about Lockerbie cannot excuse your wholly distasteful perpetuation of the 'myth' that Abdul Baset al Megrahi - and by association, Libya - were the perpetrators of the Lockerbie bombing. Your film is diabolically inaccurate, highly 'selective' [at best] in its research and sources and supports a theory that is clearly not only completely false, but very probably, politically motivated by Reagan and Thatcher. You should be ashamed.

Più mortale non è proprio un italiano da riportare per scritto … !!! Prima cosa … Poi, perché non traducete a voce ? Grazie, buona serata 4/2/‘24

👏👍❤✈

Seppos like to play with fire

My beautiful girlfriend was on that flight ✈️ 😭

shot in the dark.. but you sound finnish lol

Israel/Mossad bombed the jet, They framed Gaddafi because he was against their crimes, Rip Gaddafi.

And all this time, I thought it was the CIA... huh.

The first and second incident were Tomcats, not F-16s.

A poorly written report

What is a"Libyan-looking" man?

Why spongebob deleted that scene

This episode was the bomb.

The picture is wrong, the cockpit broke off peeling like an orange. Showing it break in the middle is wrong.

At this time I worked in a corporate travel agent in London called IEL. One staff member booked one of her friends on that flight. Very sad.

Boeing's finest engineering

It’s INSANE ! How they found out who did this horrible deed. Purely amazing.

Thank you dear Chris for such a comprehensive and sensitive production.