Netflix has released a six-episode series, The Bombing of Pan Am 103, examining the 1988 bombing that killed 270 people and devastated the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
On December 21, 1988, a bomb detonated aboard Pan Am Flight 103 at an altitude of 9,144 meters. All 259 people on board died, including 189 Americans, along with 11 residents of Lockerbie when the New York-bound Boeing 747 crashed into the town. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack on British soil.
The series takes a deliberate approach, stepping away from sensationalism. Rather than recreate the explosion from inside the plane, it opens with brief scenes at London’s Heathrow airport capturing the range of emotions among passengers: holiday joy at returning home for Christmas, first-time flyer nerves, frustration over a delay, and the despair of someone who misses the flight. Within minutes the viewer has met the victims before the story moves to its central investigation.
From there, the narrative shifts between FBI offices, the narrow streets of Malta, and Lockerbie itself. The show depicts the wreckage descending on the small southwest Scottish town — bodies, luggage, and aircraft debris — with visual restraint. Christmas lights remain on as the community is transformed into a scene of devastation.
The script, written by Jonathan Lee and Gillian Roger Park, draws on a meticulous research process that incorporates archival footage. Most characters and scenes were built from interviews with investigators, victim families, and Lockerbie residents who played central roles in the case, alongside some dramatic recreations.
The two lead characters carry much of the series’ weight. Connor Ryan Swindells plays Scottish detective Ed McCusker, while Patrick J. Adams portrays FBI Special Agent Dick Marquise. The actors convey the bureaucratic friction and mutual suspicion between the two countries’ investigative teams. Jurisdictional disputes are a recurring tension, as is the near-absence of airport security standards at the time. Both performances lean toward coldness and restraint, with emotion channelled largely through long silences and fixed camera shots. The warmer emotional current is reserved for Lockerbie’s residents, who responded to the tragedy with compassion and formed lasting bonds with victims’ families.
Color grading reinforces the mood throughout. Grey and blue tones dominate the Scottish sequences, while warmer orange hues mark the Malta scenes and the legal battles involving Pan Am.
Investigators eventually determined the bomb had been hidden inside a radio in a suitcase. Identifying the timer led to the arrest of two Libyan intelligence agents. A 2001 trial convicted one of them, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi. The case became the largest murder investigation in Scottish police history.
More than three decades on, the Netflix series presents itself less as a disaster drama and more as a record of the investigators, families, and residents whose work defined a case that left a permanent mark on the twentieth century.
