270 died as bomb explosion rained debris on town

TWENTY years have passed since Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the skies over the small town of Lockerbie.

But the bare facts of the atrocity remain no less chilling.

What made the disaster all the more poignant was its timing — on the longest night of the year, just days before Christmas.

When first reports of a crash came through, many believed it was a low-flying military flight which had come to grief, possibly crashing into a petrol station.

But as further details unfolded, the true scale of the disaster became evident as it emerged it was the Boeing 747, Maid of the Seas aircraft which had perished 38 minutes after take-off.

In all, 270 people would lose their lives in the outrage.

Along with the 259 passengers and crew on the plane, 11 residents in Lockerbie were killed as pieces of the plane rained down on the Scottish town.

The flight had been running slightly late and should have been over the Atlantic when it exploded.

If it had been, the ocean would have swallowed all traces of the plane and its passengers.

Instead, as the plane disintegrated, it smashed to earth around Lockerbie.

The fuel-laden wing section came down on the Sherwood area on the western edge of Lockerbie, adjoining the A74 road.

Public confirmation of what had been suspected from the outset came on December 28, when investigators announced that traces of high explosive had been found and the plane had been brought down by a bomb.

A later fatal accident inquiry was to determine that the bomb was in a Toshiba radio-cassette player in a Samsonite suitcase which “probably” joined the flight at Frankfurt in Germany from a non-Pan Am flight.

An international manhunt involving Scottish police and the CIA led investigators to former Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and co-accused Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, station manager at Luqa Airport in Malta.

Indictments for murder were issued against them in 1991, but it would not be until eight years later following protracted Anglo-American negotiations with Libya that the pair were handed over to the Scottish police at the neutral venue of Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

In 2001, following a nine-month trial at Camp Zeist Al Megrahi was found guilty of mass murder. His minimum sentence before being legible for parole would later be set at 27 years.

Fhimah was acquitted.

Al Megrahi has consistently denied responsibility for the outrage.

Despite his conviction doubts over his guilt remain and conspiracy theories abound about who was responsible for the atrocity.