All language subtitles for Lockerbie The Bombing of Pan Am 103 S01E01 1080p WEBRip x264-BAE_track3_[eng]

Suse: Any time
he was off from school,

This would be the place
where you would find him.

Walking the beach fairly early,

I see this tiny little speck
out in the water, waving.

And lo and behold,

There's alexander
out there already.

There he is.
There's my brother.

His pride and joy,
his surfboard.

Lucas: There's my mom.

You know, always laughing.
Always upbeat.

And uh... That all changed.
That all changed.

Suse: Absolutely nothing
prepares you for such an event.

It as horrific.
Just-just awful.

Lucas: I remember being told,

"your brother,
his plane crashed."

And the fact that it was
a bomb,

To me, it was like
the end of the world.

Lucas: I believe this
would have been--

Suse: This came from
the wreckage.

Lucas: The wreckage
of the plane.

It's part of his diary.

Lucas: You see there's
some burn holes.

Obviously water damage,
or whatever.

To have one of
your children killed,

Or, as we found out later,
murdered,

In such a fashion,

Is... Is unthinkable.

It was very upsetting for us.

But trying to find out
the why of it was paramount.

Became everything.

Reporter: Pan am flight 103
crashed

Into the scottish village
of lockerbie.

Two hundred and seventy people,
most of them americans, dead.

It was the worst terrorist
attack on an airline ever.

Reagan: We have no knowledge
of how this happened.

We're trying to find out.

Man 1: It was an attack
on america.

Man 2: The largest crime scene
in history.

Man 3: Two-hundred-thousand
pieces of evidence.

Man 4: My daughter hadn't
just died in an accident,

But been brutally murdered.

Man 5: They killed our children.

Man 6: To be lied to
for 30 years.

Man 7: I think the us government
had an agenda.

Reagan is the biggest terrorist
in the world.

Woman 1: If it's up to
our government,

We might not ever know
the truth.

Man 8: Nothing is what it seems
in the lockerbie story.

[big ben chimes]

Anthony: I was a foreign
correspondent for cbs news

Based in the london bureau.

It was almost christmas eve,

And everybody else was home
for christmas.

And all of a sudden,
over the bbc squawk box...

We had an audio connection
to the bbc newsroom.

..A voice said that an american
plane had gone off the radar

In lockerbie, scotland.

I had no idea
where lockerbie was,

I'd never even heard the word.

It's a small town
close to the english border.

It was 3,000 people.
That's all it was.

Colin: The 21st of December 1988

Will stay with me forever.

It was three months
into my police career.

And I happened to be

The youngest recruit in scotland
at the time too.

Hugh: It was a dark,
windy night, yeah.

(plane engine revs overhead)

We heard, like, banging.
Bang, bang, bang.

Margaret: We all jumped up,
looked out the window.

Anthony: The early video that
had come from british news teams

Showed there was fire
everywhere.

So, we had to, all of a sudden,
figure out what was going on,

And there wasn't a lot
of information

In those first hours.

[indistinct radio chatter]

Colin: People were completely
numb and confused.

It didn't initially
make any sense.

Radio: Doctor and ambulance
required.

My first reaction was,

"oh, it's probably
a us fighter jet

On a training mission up there,"
'cause I'd covered those.

Margaret: Here's stuff
lying on the side of the road.

And we had took one
look, and we thought,

"this has been no
military plane."

We could tell, it must
have been a passenger.

We have an unconfirmed report
that a boeing 747 airliner,

Which left heathrow at
six o'clock tonight, 1800 hours,

For jfk airport in new york,

Has crashed in the lockerbie
area of dumfriesshire.

We don't know what airline,

But the report makes it plain
that it is a civilian airliner.

Jim: On the television,

There was this message
about a terrible disaster

Happening in the borders
between scotland and England.

And my wife jane
concluded immediately that...

..Our daughter flora
was on that plane.

She was just on the eve of her
24th birthday that year, 1988.

She rang up to ask us

If we minded
if she went over to america

To meet her boyfriend
over christmas.

And, of course,
not being total ogres,

We said, "yes, if that's what
you want to do."

Everything was booked up,

Except there were plenty
of seats available

On a certain flight
known as pan am 103.

Which is why we're talking now.

Radio 1: 747 downed
from london to new york.

Crashed ten minutes
after takeoff.

Radio 2: There was some type
of explosion in mid-air

And the plane broke into
several parts.

Victoria: The radio reported
that a pan american flight

Had disappeared from radar.

Radio 1: Wreckage is said to be
scattered over a ten-mile area.

Victoria: Flight 103.

And I said to my mother,

"oh, that's the flight
that normally john flies on.

"he's gonna come home
on tomorrow."

John happened to be in london
on business.

Every day we would always talk.

You know, check in
with each other,

See how the three kids
were getting on.

He had called me first thing
on December 21st.

We had talked about
preparation for christmas

And the kids, you know,]
waiting for santa

And daddy to come home,

And celebrating our youngest
daughter's third birthday.

He made no mention that he was
going to be changing his plans

And trying to come home early
and surprise us.

Dan rather: A gruesome
christmastime disaster tonight.

A quiet scottish village
an inferno of flames,

After a pan american jumbo jet,

Homeward bound
across the atlantic,

Went off the radar and went
down in the village center.

Now, in our cbs news
london bureau at the moment

Is anthony mason.

Anthony.

The latest details we have, dan,
are these.

The air traffic controllers
at prestwick in scotland

Reportedly spoke to the plane
minutes before the crash.

Anthony: We knew there would be
hundreds of americans

On the flight.

Man, it was a pan am flight.

Any of us could have been on
that flight home for christmas.

Reporter: Authorities
immediately closed the main road

Between England and scotland.

And dozens of local ambulances
were sent in.

They still have several
helicopters

Flying around in the area,
bringing in casualties,

But so far as I can make out,
these casualties are...

..Are corpses.

Anthony: You know,
you had americans

Who'd been working abroad, who'd
been living abroad, who were...

You know, it was the holidays,

So, so many of them
were going home

To see their relatives
or families.

But the largest group of
americans on the plane

Were a group of students from
syracuse university,

Who were coming home
from a term abroad.

There were 35 of them.

So, that made it
even more heartbreaking.

Suse: Alexander was a senior
at syracuse.

He was a kid you liked to have,

Because he was funny, he was
very colorful in many ways,

Very talented
in terms of surfing,

And what can I say,
he was a great kid.

I was actually working
in the studio,

And the phone rang,
and it was a friend of his.

She was very hesitant in saying,
"hi, how are you?"

"fine."

"is alexander home yet?"

And I said, "no, he's not."

And she said, "do you know
when he's coming home?"

And I said, "yes, he's
coming home later today."

And she sort of said,
"what airline?"

And I said, "it's pan am."

And she said, "that number?"

And I said, "it's 103."

And she just screamed,
"haven't you heard?

"it went down in a fireball."

And I screamed at her
to just never say that again,

But I knew.

If you need information
about someone

Who may have been on pan am
flight 103,

There are a couple of numbers
you can call.

The first is toll free,
and it's 1-800...

Victoria: There was an
800 number that said, you know,

To call that number,
and it was busy, busy.

And then finally, I um...

..Got through.

I said, "I've been told
my husband was on this flight."

"what's his name?
What's his nationality?"

And I-I-I'm desperate.
You know?

I'm saying, "why are you
asking me all these questions?

"I just need to know,

"was john cummock on the flight
or wasn't he?

And um, they started taking all
this different information

And they said,
"well, we really... "

Um...

"we can't confirm anything
right now."

I said, "so, you can't confirm
if he was on the flight?

"you can't confirm that
this plane has crashed?"

And they said, "no. We're just
taking information right now."

And I said, "how cruel is this?"

I said, "you know,
I have three little children."

Jim: Heathrow, I couldn't
get through to at all.

And eventually,
we ended up ringing

The pan am desk in new york.

They were able to tell us
that flora was on that flight.

And at the same time, we could
hear chaos in the background.

And you could hear
women screaming.

[woman screams)}

[wailing] my baby!

Jim: A lot of american families
had congregated at jfk airport

To get the latest news
on this crash,

Because most of the
victims were american.

I was at syracuse university,

And one of my roommates
leaned in a little bit

And he said, you know, "lucas,
you have to call your parents."

So, called my parents, and
my dad answered the phone.

And uh...

I-I said, "w-w-what's going on?
What-what is it?"

And he really just
couldn't speak.

He didn't say anything.

And then my mom took
the phone from him and she said,

"your brother.

"his plane crashed."

Very early on the morning,
not long after dawn had broken,

We flew out to lockerbie.

David: There's an enormous hole
in the ground

Where pan am flight 103
is thought to have made

Its first contact
with the ground.

And on either side of the hole,
houses are absolutely shattered.

You can see the trail
of devastation

Wreaked by the 747

As it bounced and burnt its way
across the town.

The fields here are littered

With what are as recognizable as
parts of the fuselage and wing

Of the 747.

I've been told that the crew
were found

Strapped in their
seats in the cockpit.

[tape recorder clicks]

Gosh.

Interviewer: You were one of the
first journalists on the ground?

Yeah. It was...

It was, you know, an image
you just won't forget.

And we were low enough to, you
know, quite clearly see features

And see that people were just
sitting out in the grass.

But, of course,
they were all dead.

The next morning, very early, we
got on a charter plane up north

And then drove to lockerbie.

That image of the nose
of the plane, the cockpit,

Sitting up on a hill in a field.

It's an incredibly distressing
thing to see.

It doesn't go away.

It became the enduring symbol
of lockerbie.

All you had to do was see that
and understand...

We were looking at a tragedy.

Dick: Generally speaking,
747s don't fall out of the sky.

So, the first suspicion was,

Something bad happened
to that plane.

The fbi, we had somebody in
charge of the investigation.

That was me.

Certainly, this was something
that we took seriously

And we devoted resources
to finding out what happened.

We have a requirement to...

Obtain the very best
evidence that we can,

To allow us to try
and find a cause

Of the accident.

Uh, or if it is an accident.

The scottish police
had resources.

They were a very
civilized, well-trained,

Excellent police agency.

Reporter: Hundreds of police,
from forces throughout scotland,

Are now involved in
the search for debris.

So, we asked, "we would
like to work with you,"

Recognizing they are in charge
of the investigation.

And the fbi is not used
to not being in charge.

Um, I have been appointed as
the investigator in charge

For this particular accident.

There obviously are a number
of potential causes

For an in-flight breakup.

We are looking for evidence
to try and find the point

At which things first
started to go wrong.

The big question was,
was it structural failure

Or was it a bomb?

Neither one of those
were great answers.

Reporter: Pan am flight 103
began in frankfurt,

Then passengers
changed planes at heathrow

For the flight on to new york.

Over lockerbie,
the crew went silent.

Before it crashed, pan am
flight 103 was on course,

On schedule
and gave no signal of distress.

Colin: The aircraft was flying

At a bearing of about
320 degrees,

Kind of northwest-ish,
at 31,000 feet.

At 07:02 and a few seconds,

The nose cone rips off
the front of the aircraft.

Investigators will want to see
if there was any evidence

Of a sudden cabin
depressurization

That could be caused by
a massive technical failure,

Or by a bomb explosion.

Whatever happened to this plane
may have started about in here,

An area of the plane where
a cargo hold runs underneath.

Colin: At that point,
it starts to plummet

And dive directly
towards the town.

But because it was
quite windy that night,

As the aircraft breaks up,

The lighter things
blew much further east.

So, the debris field
extended, in fact,

As far as the east coast
of England.

Anthony: It was the largest
debris field I'd ever seen.

The search parties became
part of the landscape.

You couldn't look at a field and
not see a line of people

Walking across it,
looking for things.

Dick: It was humongous.

Eight hundred and forty-five
square miles.

The largest crime
scene in history.

You know, I think initially
we just thought

This was a terrible,
terrible accident,

With a huge loss of life,

When you're thinking about
the families.

'cause I'd lived in scotland
as well,

Not so far from lockerbie,
less than 100 miles.

Somewhere I'd driven past a lot.

You're realizing that this has
affected a place that you know.

Anthony: We were walking
into the village,

And I remember these little
houses along the road in.

You know, they were smoldering.

Some of them were still on fire.

There was debris on the street.

It looked like a bombed-out
european village world war ii.

There was the enormous crater
caused by the wing

That landed on
a group of houses.

It was all
incredibly disturbing.

Interviewer: You can really see
the extent

Of the devastation there,
can't you?

So, that's the front
of your house there?

You're so close.

And just...

Anthony: There were
259 passengers on the plane.

Of those, 190 were american.

There were also 11 people
on the ground

Who ended up being killed.

So, we were looking at a tragedy
that affected 270 people.

It was an international tragedy,

But it was especially
an american tragedy.

Reagan: I want to express
our sorrow and our concern

For the families and friends
of those who died in the crash

Of the pan american flight 103.

Christmas is a special
time for the young,

For those who carry the twin
promises of hopes and dreams.

And on this flight
were the hopes and dreams

Of many young people,

Including the tragic loss
of so many students

From syracuse university.

A tragedy that steals the hopes
and dreams from our society,

Magnifies the loss.

May god be with them.

Nic: These were young people

Who were on their way home
for christmas.

Their families were waiting.

And they got the
worst possible news

They could have possibly had.

Officials at syracuse university
have provided this list

Of some of the 38 students
booked on flight 103.

That's when we first saw
my brother's name

As confirmed to have been
on the flight.

"alexander lowenstein".

A terrible way to find out
that your child has died.

Reporter: Police
and the rescue services

Have so far recovered
about 150 bodies.

Sixty of them were found
on a golf course.

About 40 others
found in a housing estate.

Reporter 2: Dozens of victims
strewn along the landscape

In a four-mile swath.

It'll be a sad christmas
in this town.

Victoria: Of course,
in the media,

Everything was about that image.

And in the foreground
was all debris,

And there were, you know, bodies
covered with orange tarps.

And in the right side
of the foreground

Was a brown attache case.

I'd given john that attache case
for our anniversary

On August 23rd of that year.

He really was onboard the plane.

That's how...

..Really, my...

Was the beginning
of my nightmare.

Um...

Look at the crumpled mess it is.

Dear, dear, dear, dear.

These things were all in
the front of the house, yeah.

Well, there's the house.

That's how near it was.

And that's the wing of the plane
and the flaps.

Margaret: Yes, this is
the red suitcase.

That was quite
the thing to see.

Interviewer: Take me through
that moment

When you came across the bodies.

Yeah. It was quite unreal
for us, you know.

[sighs][ goodness me.

Hugh: He was lying on the ground
with the seat of top of him.

We didn't know who he was.

But you got attached to him
some way.

Aye.

Margaret: For nearly 24 hours,

We were keeping an eye on him
up there, you know.

We developed quite a love for
'our boy', we called him.

Margaret: And that was
the door.

Just a few hours before,

They'd all gone in that door,
hadn't they?

Yeah.

And here it's lying
amongst them.

Yeah.

Man: As at half-past
three this afternoon,

The temporary mortuary at
the town hall is now full.

We have opened a second mortuary

At the ice rink,
at lockerbie ice rink,

Where in total
we have now received,

Between the two
mortuaries, 150 bodies.

We have, as yet, no positive,
formal identifications.

The body of somebody
who's been killed

By falling six miles
to the ground

Is not a pretty sight.

She'd been so damaged.

She hadn't been damaged
by the explosion on the plane,

But mainly by impact
with the ground.

Which had so altered her
face and her head that she...

Well, she was
barely recognizable.

I asked him if, um...

If I could look
at her left foot,

Because she had a little
pigmented spot on her big toe.

So, the cloth was taken off her
at her feet.

There was the spot.

On her undamaged foot.

Jane: I didn't want to see her
when she had been killed.

I wanted to remember her
as I had last seen her.

Full of life.

She was everything that
a parent could wish for.

Beautiful, bright,
lively, intelligent, yeah.

And we were very proud of her.

A very kind guy who was
organizing all this for me said,

"'anything else I can do?"

So, I said, "yes. 'could I have
a lock of her hair?"

He was kind enough to do that.

Human kindness
can be very important

When these things happen.

I tried to imagine
how I would feel

If it was one of my close family
that had been on that flight.

Still too many question marks
over it.

Still too many people
left in complete doubt

As to what happened
to their loved ones.

Suse: For a number of days,

We didn't know about
alexander's body.

Will it be found?

Is it incinerated?

How did he fall?

You know, all these questions
are going through your mind.

Unanswered, mind you, because
there were so many days

Where you got no answers
from anybody.

Victoria: The immediate need
that I had,

And a lot of the other families,

Was to find out how to get
our loved ones home.

Our government abdicated all
their responsibility and role

Of, um, crisis
management and assistant

To the victims' families
to pan am.

And so here's pan am
circling the wagons thinking,

"oh, well, we might be
sued," or whatever.

And they weren't
helping us at all.

Anthony: Pan am was an iconic
american airline.

Those were not its best days.

But it was still, you know,

Prime american branding
real estate.

Suse: Pan am was a catastrophe.

The state department was
ridiculous, non-existent.

So, we were futzing around,
not knowing what to do

Or where to get information
from.

And every time we got
information,

It got worse by the minute,.

David: No-one does come to
lockerbie with clean hands.

There's so many twists and turns
in this whole story,

From the very first
day that it happens.

People trying to get
off the hook, you know?

The insurers trying
to pass the buck.

The airline
trying to save itself.

There were people from the fbi,
obviously.

There were also people
from murkier ends

Of the us intelligence
community.

Nothing is what it seems
in the lockerbie story.

You know, nothing quite adds up.

Jim: The flight on which flora
got her seat at the last minute

Was only two-thirds full.

How many flights, two or
three days before christmas,

To the states, are
only two-thirds full?

Answer - only those fights where
people have been warned off.

She wasn't warned off.

Nobody told us.

Dan rather: In this season
of peace on earth,

Growing suspicion
of sabotage in the sky.

Reagan-bush administration
officials acknowledged today

That an anonymous caller
had threatened

To blow up a pan am plane
some time this month.

But no-one warned the us army
or the flying public.

In early December,

Someone called the us
embassy in helsinki

And made a threat.

Within two weeks' time,

Someone will carry a bomb
on board a pan am flight

From frankfurt to
the united states.

David: People working for
us agencies

Were made aware
of that warning...

..And were given the chance to
make alternative arrangements.

Whereas the normal
traveling public

Weren't given that chance.

The american authorities

Put notices up on the
noticeboards of their embassies,

Telling them that there'd been a
terrorist threat

To these flights,

And they might want to
avoid them

To get home for christmas,
you see,

To their families
in the united states.

Interpol warned airlines
and police authorities

In 147 countries.

Reporter: The anonymous
phone call to the us embassy

In helsinki, finland,
was very specific

And perhaps very prophetic.

Victoria: Lo and behold,

There were over ten different
bomb warnings on these flights.

And we wanted to know
who got the warnings

And what did our
government do about it?

Woman: We receive dozens
of threats each day.

We notified the people who have
responsibility for security.

Dick: If nothing else,
it looked bad.

"we protect ourselves.
We don't protect you."

Such a public statement,

With nothing more to go on than
an anonymous telephone call,

You'd literally have closed down
the air traffic in the world.

Reporter: Mr. Reagan, the
suggestion, though, is that...

No.

Lucas: We were livid.

There was a lot of backpedaling
from our government afterwards.

But even before the bombing,

This particular warning
was circulated

Throughout us embassies
in europe

And put on various bulletin
boards,

And many people
switched their flights.

Obviously, pan am
wasn't mandated

To enhance security,
search the plane,

Or warn the passengers.

But what really
petrified all of us

Is that this was going to
happen to somebody else.

And we didn't want
any american -

Anybody - to go through
what we had gone through.

Nic: If some diplomats had known
this, then why not everyone?

Why weren't they alerted?

Why were they left in the dark?

And, therefore,
why did their loved ones die?

Jim: All I was
after was the truth.

About how my daughter
had come to be killed.

And why she wasn't protected
against being killed.

Those were the bases in
which we very soon found

We were being ritually and
profusely deceived

By the authorities.

Reporter: A thousand army and
air force troops and policemen

Were deployed over the hills
and fields around lockerbie.

They combed the ground
near the main crash site.

An aircraft made up of
several million parts

Now lies in
several million bits.

Finding the ones
that can tell something

May take a very long time.

All the evidence is converging

On this lockerbie
school building,

Where, in an auditorium,

Police, military and airline
investigation leaders

Are trying to piece together
just what happened.

It has been established

That two parts of the metal
luggage pallet's framework

Show conclusive evidence
of a detonating high explosive.

Much investigative work
remains to be done to...

Anthony: It took them a week of
examining all of the debris

And the fragments of the plane.

Finally, a week later, they
found explosive residue

Inside the baggage container.

And that's when they determined
conclusively

That it was a bomb.

There is no doubt anymore -

The 259 passengers and crew
of flight 103

Were killed by a bomb.

Reporter: The next question -
who set it

And how did it get onboard?

Suse: It turned into
a murder investigation.

And that somehow
affected me deeply,

Because not only did I now
have a dead son,

I had a murdered son.

Dick: Within a week, we knew

That it was a terrorist attack
against the united states -

And against an american carrier
- that killed 270 people.

It was the largest act
of terrorism

On the united states, ever,
before 9/11.

What we want to do
is find out who did it

And bring them to
justice, you bet.

Bruce: The mid-1980s
were really a remarkable time,

In terms of
international terrorism.

Virtually every day,

There was some news
of some new terrorist attack.

Airplane hijackings,
airplane bombings,

Attacks on embassies,
assassinations of individuals.

You could look at the iranians.
You could look at the iraqis.

You could look at the syrians.

You could look at
the palestinians.

You could look at the libyans.

They'd all been involved in
terrorism.

Bruce: There was ano -
the abu nidal organization -

Pflp - popular front for
the liberation of palestine, -

Pflpgc -

The popular front for liberation
of palestine general command -

The provisional irish republican
army - pira - hezbollah.

[man yells in foreign language]

And it sort of the fed
the anonymity.

Like, who were these people?
Who was behind them?

Why were they
doing these things?

And it's often very hard
to find clear answers.

Dick: And then in late January,
early February,

We found a suitcase.

Many of the suitcases that
fell 31,000 feet to the ground

Would have been a great
commercial - they fell intact.

You could take the clothes out,
put them on and go to a meeting.

But this suitcase was in about
54 pieces and fragments.

We pretty much thought

That suitcase contained
the explosive.

The bomb that blew up the plane.

That suitcase was determined to
be a samsonite silhouette 4000.

Antique copper in color.

They were able to determine that
the bomb was in that suitcase

In the forward cargo hold,

Just under
the back of first class.

Jim: It was in the hold
of pan am 103,

Where the bomb exploded
and murdered my daughter.

The british authorities had been
warned well before lockerbie,

And had essentially
done nothing.

Victoria: If it's up
to our government,

We might not ever know
why pan am 103

Was blown out of the sky.

Anthony: It was a whole world
of intrigue,

And it was almost
incomprehensible.

Basically, investigators had to
go off into the shadows

To try to figure out
how this came about.

And I remember thinking,

"you're never really
gonna understand this."