Lockerbie on Channel 7 – Christmas cheer in the quiet farming community of Lockerbie is shattered on the night of 21st December 1988, as a huge explosion destroys a residential street, and for miles around debris falls from the skies.
Local residents speak of their shock and confusion at what looks like a plane crash, and their distress at finding bodies – sometimes still in their airline seats – in their gardens and fields.
Meanwhile relatives of those on-board Pan Am 103 learn of the disaster on television and the radio, unable to confirm their loved ones’ deaths for many hours due to jammed phone lines. Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was on the flight, drives to Lockerbie determined to see her body, held in a temporary mortuary at the town’s ice rink.
So begins Jim’s search for the truth about how she died. It emerges the plane was downed by a bomb: the prime suspects are Iran, who had publicly vowed revenge for the accidental downing of an Iran Air passenger flight by the US Navy in the Gulf in July 1988.
A huge criminal investigation is set in motion, and investigators find their first lead – pieces of a suitcase they believe contained the bomb.
then on episode 2 at 9.30pm
Investigators uncover a key piece of forensic evidence – a fragment of a Toshiba radio that points to an Iran-backed Palestinian terror cell.
Meanwhile, Miami-based Victoria Cummock, who lost her husband on the flight, longs to have his personal effects returned. His clothes are unexpectedly sent back to her, tenderly washed and ironed by a group of volunteers in Lockerbie.
Further clues take FBI investigator Phil Reid to Malta, a mediterranean island near the rogue state of Libya. Libya’s leader, Colonel Gaddafi, has a motive for the attack – the American bombing of his capital in 1986 and a hatred of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
As two Libyan suspects fall into Phil’s sights, investigators trace the maker of the bomb timer, a Swiss electronics expert called Edwin Bollier, who says he sold a batch of timers to Libya several years earlier. Following CIA cooperation Phil believes he has traced the two bombers: Lamin Fhima and Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan Arab Airlines manager and a Libyan intelligence officer.
His theory is that they conspired to put the bomb on Pan Am 103 via a connecting flight from Malta. His theory is strengthened when Bollier reveals he rented an office to al-Megrahi…
About the Show
LOCKERBIE is a gripping and emotional series that documents Britain’s worst ever terror attack and the deadliest attack on the US before 9/11 – the bombing of flight Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988.
From the initial mayhem and confusion in the small farming town, the film’s focus turns to the victims’ relatives as they hear the devasting news. It’s soon established the plane was downed by a bomb and we follow the sprawling transatlantic investigation through two FBI agents at the heart of the story.
They discount the prime suspects, a fringe terror cell linked to Iran, and alight on two Libyan men active in Malta, who they believe put the suitcase containing the bomb into the airline baggage system there. Dr Jim Swire, 87, whose daughter Flora was killed on the flight, has long believed Gaddafi’s Libya to be innocent, a victim of international power politics.
Following the trial, at which one of the Libyans was convicted of mass murder, Jim campaigns for what he believes to be the truth, often at odds with the American relatives we hear from throughout the series. Subsequent investigations cast doubt on the Libyan conviction. In December 2022, one more mystery suspect appears in U.S. custody. Will he reveal all?
Lockerbie on Channel 7 and 7plus – Sunday 17 March, 2024 at 8:30pm
Media Release – Seven
Lockerbie on Channel 7
TV Central Seven content HERE
Lockerbie on Channel 7
