Transcript for Pan Am Flight 103 taken down in 1988 bombing

From ABC this is. News tonight with Peter Jennifer good evening the simple facts of these pan am flight 103 had been in the air for an hour. The 747 was on route from London to new York and then Detroit. According to Pan American over more than 240 passengers on board and the crew fifteen it was after dark. For reasons we do not yet understand the plane with 50000 gallons of fuel onboard plunged into a small Scottish market town. Pan American is not aware that any of the passengers or crew has survived our first report is from ABC's Barry dunce. The first pictures from the scene show strings of houses on fire eyewitnesses say the plane hit a gas station and several houses. Others comfortable rumbling and then a terrible explosion. Dozens of houses of burning and the propagated being hampered in their attempt to put out the fires by the risk of a further explosions from the petrol station. But the pan am Jumbo hate that it crashed into the town. Rescue services have taken a dozen people to an area hospitals they are believed to be local people suffering from burns. There is no word but little hope for the passengers. There's very little hope I would have both anybody within that play. When he becomes a recipe book described locally within north but what they did it very hard. Pan am flight 103 originated in Frankfurt west Germany there was a plane change for the 747. In London. 54 minutes after the plane took off flying at 31000 feet it disappeared from radar screens in Scotland. Shortly after it was seen crashing into the Scottish town of Lockerbie near Scotland's border would England. In New York a pan am spokesman said there was no contact with the aircraft before it crushed. As I said there was no prior indication that there were any problems with the aircraft. There was no contact. Prior any mayday signals. The aircraft had made normal can contact with the control center. More than a dozen rescue helicopters have been dispatched to the area while the main highway between Scotland and England has been closed. The tone center of Lockerbie is littered with debris. And it's also understood that the cockpit of the plane hit another town about six miles away. This may account for the fact that some people think there were true planes and two explosions however the RAF has ruled out any military plane. And it doesn't seem likely a civilian plane would have been that high. An official of Jane's all the world's aircraft has told us tonight that given the spread of the debris it certainly seems as though there was an implosion. Which wouldn't caused by a structural failure or an explosion caused perhaps by a ball here. OK Barry Americans were in London thanks very much.

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