REPORT OF THE - Archives - Syracuse University

The flight deck and forward portion of "Maid of the Seas" came to rest in Tundergarth
Field, approximately three miles from Lockerbie, Scotland.
Sections of the aircraft fell upon and around the quiet town of Lockerbie, in the rolling
hills of Scotland. The wings and attached fuselage section plummeted into the edge of the
town, gorging a crater 140 feet long and 40 feet wide and exploding into a fireball that
towered 10,000 feet. A piece of window frame from a nearby house landed three miles
away. Winds scattered debris from the aircraft all the way to the coast of England, 80
miles to the east.
The worst security-related disaster in U.S. civil aviation history had happened. All aboard
the plane and 11 residents of Lockerbie perished.
The Aftermath
An immense investigation immediately began in Lockerbie to establish the cause of the
aircraft's destruction. The investigators would eventually conclude that an explosive
device utilizing a plastic explosive was likely concealed in a radio cassette recorder
carried within a suitcase stowed in the cargo hold.
A huge effort by the citizens of Lockerbie also began in order to deal with the aftermath
of the tragedy. Personnel from Pan Am and Boeing among many others arrived at
Lockerbie, as did officers from the U.S. Department of State. State Department activities
will be reviewed in Chapter 7 of this Report. Representatives from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation also arrived to assist in the investigation. The Central Intelligence Agency
told the Commission that it did not send anyone to the site.
Through an emergency rule-making, the FAA amended the Air Carrier Standard Security
Program in the days after the Lockerbie atrocity. By December 31, 1988, all affected
carriers were required to meet more stringent requirements, including total reconciliation
between passengers and checked baggage. Under the new standard, bags could not fly
unless specifically matched with a passenger. There could be no more "extra" bags. Pan
Am implemented the procedure at Frankfurt on January 4, 1989.
The FAA also began its own special investigation of the Pan Am procedures at Frankfurt
and Heathrow. The Frankfurt phase was completed by mid-January, and the Heathrow
review by the end of January. The inquiries covered the six-week period beginning on
December 21, 1988.
Upon leaving Frankfurt and Heathrow the FAA inspectors, as was customary, briefed Pan
Am on their findings. The first deficiency noted in Frankfurt was that the passenger/bag
match system in place for interline bags was "inadequate." The investigators told Pan Am
they had found that "interline bags were X-rayed only with no correlation between the
passenger boarding the aircraft and the bag being placed on board."
In late January and early February 1989, the FAA sent teams of investigators on
"determination trips," intended to assess how carriers were complying with the new
procedures the FAA had mandated at the end of December 1988. While at the airports in
Frankfurt and London, the determination teams decided to conduct full compliance
inspections of Pan Am as well.
The January inspection at Frankfurt revealed that many of the same problems existing on
December 21, 1988, continued uncorrected. Deficiencies included no written bag match
procedures; no challenging of unbadged personnel; inadequate tracking of passenger
screening; failure to secure gates or ramps, and failure to search servicing personnel. An