Lockerbie disaster ‘could have struck Longford’

IRELAND could have witnessed its first major international terrorist incident if the Pan-Am flight which crashed over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988 had left London’s Heathrow Airport on schedule.

Air accident investigators yesterday revealed the bomb which exploded on the New York-bound flight which killed 270 people would have been passing close to Longford if the Boeing 747 aircraft had departed London on time.

Details were disclosed during a media briefing by the Department of Transport’s Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU).