Pan Am 103 Historical Significance

On December 21, 1988, Pan American flight 103, originating in Frankfort, Germany landed at London’s Heathrow Airport, and after loading passengers and luggage, took off for New York’s JFK airport at 18:25 p.m. At approximately 19:02 p.m. air traffic control lost contact with it. A few seconds later the radar showed the plane’s blip on the screen fracture into five separate ones, trailing away from each other. The plane had exploded and the debris rained down on the Scottish town of Lockerbee.
243 passengers and 16 crew, dead, as well as 11 residents from Lockerbee.
This was one of the most famous plane crashes in history, both for the horror it was, the subsequent political implications, and the forensic investigation that ensued leading to
This told the investigators that the bomb was loaded onto the plane in Frankfurt, at the flight’s origin. A further investigation of the luggage which was also collected and analyzed, revealed the exact piece of luggage, a brown Samsonite case, that had carried the bomb. Inside that Samsonite case was a Ghettoblaster cassette player, stuffed with Semtex. Scientists can piece this together because the pieces of wreckage closest to the blast have the most residue.
This fact enabled them to trace the clothing from that suitcase to a shop in Malta where sales receipts started the trail that eventually led to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah. Megrahi was found guilty and went to jail. A Scottish judge released him when it was determined that he had terminal cancer. Fhimah was exonerated. The investigation also led to a connection to Muammar Gaddafi, leader of Libya. After a good deal of international pressure, he eventually paid compensation to the families of the victims.
It should be noted that all plane crashes where explosives or bombs are suspected to be the cause, are analyzed the same