Passing overhead Lockerbie, Scotland, the aircraft disintegrated when an explosion occurred in the forward baggage hold. The centre fuselage and wing sections fell into a residential district, digging a crater some 30ft deep and 150ft long. 20 houses were destroyed. All 259 people on board the aircraft were killed as well as 11 people on the ground.

......The British Air Accidents Investigation Board collected wreckage and a week after the report confirmed that there was evidence of an explosive found, most likely the plastic explosive Semtex. Further investigation showed that the explosive was most likely located in a cassette player inside a suitcase. A reconstruction of the explosion showed that it initially tore a hole in the forward left side of the aircraft some 5ft wide and 15ft high. Within three seconds, the entire forward section of the aircraft separated. The rest of the fuselage continued to fall increasingly nose-down until passing vertical near 19,000ft. The engines broke away and the tail disintegrated. Some of the lighter pieces of debris were carried nearly 80 miles before falling to earth. A piece of the timer used to detonate the bomb was found imbedded in a piece of luggage.

The luggage was traced back to Libya where it had been boarded on an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt and then placed aboard the Pan Am service. Eleven months after the accident, the US announced its indictment of two Libyan intelligence agents. It was later learned that a called had been placed to the US Embassy in Helsinki, Finland 16 days prior to the accident announcing that a Pan Am flight between Frankfurt and the US would be sabotaged. This threat was not made public as officials did not want to give publicity to the perpetrators.

Running half a hour late, Pan Am flight 103 departed London's Heathrow airport bound for New York City on the evening of December 21, 1988. The 747 carried 243 passengers along with 16 crew members. This was the second leg of service beginning earlier in the day in Frankfurt, Germany. The first leg had been serviced by a 727 and 49 passengers had transferred in London to the 747. About 40 minutes into the flight, the aircraft was cruising in the darkness at FL310. Passing overhead Lockerbie, Scotland, the aircraft disintegrated when an explosion occurred in the forward baggage hold. The centre fuselage and wing sections fell into a residential district, digging a crater some 30ft deep and 150ft long. 20 houses were destroyed. All 259 people on board the aircraft were killed as well as 11 people on the ground.

......The British Air Accidents Investigation Board collected wreckage and a week after the report confirmed that there was evidence of an explosive found, most likely the plastic explosive Semtex. Further investigation showed that the explosive was most likely located in a cassette player inside a suitcase. A reconstruction of the explosion showed that it initially tore a hole in the forward left side of the aircraft some 5ft wide and 15ft high. Within three seconds, the entire forward section of the aircraft separated. The rest of the fuselage continued to fall increasingly nose-down until passing vertical near 19,000ft. The engines broke away and the tail disintegrated.

Some of the lighter pieces of debris were carried nearly 80 miles before falling to earth. A piece of the timer used to detonate the bomb was found imbedded in a piece of luggage. The luggage was traced back to Libya where it had been boarded on an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt and then placed aboard the Pan Am service.