EPISODE 330: Pan Am Flight 103: The Lockerbie Bombing

On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we look at the deaths, political intrigue, and conspiracy theories surrounding the infamous bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Called The Lockerbie Bombing due to the destruction caused by the plane crashing over that Scottish city, the plane was brought down by a bomb placed in the nose of the plane. Who would want to bring this plane down and why? That’s what we aimed to find out through our research.

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded 31,000 feet over Lockerbie. On board, 259 people died, and on the ground, 11 people died in the horrible fireball caused by the ignition of 200,000 pounds of jet fuel. The bomb was small and easy to conceal. It was a cutting-edge Symtec bomb hidden in a radio and smuggled into a suitcase (the alleged bombers weren’t on board). The bomb was so advanced that security screeners weren’t trained to look for its kind until 11 months after this bombing.

So who placed the bomb? The official report is that it was two Libyans who possibly worked for Libyan intelligence. Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah were implicated, and after everything from embargoes to threats, the United Nations got Colonel Gadhafi to extradite them for trial. During the incredibly lengthy and thorough investigation, the CIA pointed the bomb fragments to a Libyan group, and detectives did a crazy patchwork of information, pulling evidence from a crazy weather wizard, a tailor with a seemingly photographic memory, and a person who hung Christmas lights. Needless to say, the evidence is a bit shaky.

One of the Libyans was convicted and the other got off. However, some very reputable journalistic sources from Frontline to Time Magazine came to question the official stories. Some point to Iran and some strange plans that dealt with the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Others point to the CIA who was revealed to be allowing Syrians to smuggle heroin on Pan Am in exchange for intelligence on terrorist networks. Either way, the story of the bombing, the horrible details, and the final death of the bomber of Pan Am Flight 103 are a very interesting tale.

The PBS Frontline article on alternative theories of the bombing: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/lockerbie-the-alternate-theories/