Flight 103 is not an easy watch. It's a riveting watch instead.
The Lockerbie terror attack = Pan Am flight 103. Picture FBI
Dammit. It’s scary. One minute you’re at the airport, boarding a flight to see your loved ones, to go sign the all-important business deal, or simply to go and explore a different country. Then, a few minutes or hours later, you cease to exist.
It’s been almost four decades since Pan Am Flight 103 from London Heathrow to New York exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 people on board. The crash that followed demolished part of the village and murdered 11 people on the ground.
The Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on Netflix is a must-watch.
It was, of course, a terror attack, and the bomb on board the aircraft set off one of the largest murder investigations in Scottish policing history. Fifteen years before 9/11, which until today holds pole position in the public imagination of cruel, despicable acts of terror, the Lockerbie explosion left an indelible mark on the festive season. It was 21 December 1988.
Festive season disaster
That is the premise of the limited series that tells the story of the investigation and the gigantic effort that took place behind the news cameras to bring the perpetrators to justice, to establish exactly what happened and to install further security measures, avoiding a reprise of the same. Flight 103 is a dramatic re-enactment of every bit of detail and investigative suss that this mammoth task demanded. And it is fantastic watching.
What the show is not is a documentary. It’s a dramatised account and feels like a method-investigative police show, far removed from the usual air crash investigation formulaic approach to disasters like Lockerbie. Think the Ed Gein story and other narrative-based investigative docuseries. But in this instance, think emotion, humanity woven in between, and the determination of investigators to find answers. Think American abrasive ego, British understatement and kindness between the sorrow. It’s the building blocks of a drama that holds its own as a serial.
The official explanation for the Lockerbie bombing is that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ordered the attack in retaliation for a series of military confrontations with the United States. These included the 1986 Berlin nightclub bombing, blamed on Libya, the subsequent US airstrikes on Tripoli and Benghazi under Operation El Dorado Canyon, which killed dozens of people including Gaddafi’s adopted daughter, and repeated clashes between US and Libyan forces in the Gulf of Sidra.
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Investigators, however, initially focused on a different theory. They suspected Iran had commissioned the bombing as revenge for the accidental downing of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Navy ship Vincennes in July 1988, which killed all 290 people on board. Intelligence agencies believed Iran may have used the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command to carry out the attack.
Although some victims’ families and researchers still support this theory, investigators ultimately changed their focus to Libya after forensic evidence linked a microchip found in the bomb to Libyan intelligence. The North African state eventually paid families compensation without ever admitting guilt, officially.
Revenge attack?
Instead of the usual theatrical turn, the limited series sets the scene, and then heads straight into the rain of fire on the small town. The producers use actual news footage and reportage from the incident to colour a spectacularly reconstructed set of the disaster. It’s not flashy at all, but sombre in colourisation and performances and allows the audience’s minds to drift into the evilness of it all, and the realisation, again, that there were incredibly nasty terror incidents before September 11.
Flight 103 is not an easy watch. It’s a riveting watch instead. The bluntness of the direction juxtaposes with the kindness of a community that came together. There’s no lead character here, only a collective of investigators across both sides of the Atlantic, victims, perpetrators, a soupcon of prejudice and a landscape of sadness, determination and damn awful motives. What a fantastic show to binge!
