PAN AM 103

INVESTIGATION UNCOVERS ONE TENTATIVE CLUE AT A TIME OVER THE YEARS

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Passengers literally fell out of the sky when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in mid-air over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Christmas in New York City was meant for 243 passengers from London aboard a Boeing 747 until just 62 minutes into the flight a bomb ripped through the luggage compartment and tore the airplane into pieces.

The terrorist attack that also killed 16 flight crew on the plane and 11 residents on the ground in Lockerbie, who died from the fires and falling debris, was eventually linked to Libyan government operatives.

Series creator and director Jonathan Lee begins the 6-part drama series with the passengers boarding the plane, but then the camera begins to unwind the tragedy to show the trauma created by the surreal event.

Connor Swindells plays Scottish detective Ed McCusker who becomes involved in the investigation as a member of the small Scottish town police force.

Swindells shows how the tragedy is so surreal, with investigators finding the 270 bodies on the ground in Lockerbie, that the police have personal difficulties remaining involved in the investigation.

Eventually the camera leaves the crash site as the terrorist attack becomes an international crime event involving police forces from several countries, including the United States and Germany. Patrick J. Adams plays the lead officer from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Dick Marquise.

Peter Mullan plays John Orr, a senior police chief leading the Scottish investigation. Orr must argue to maintain control of the investigation from the FBI, but then he also quickly learns to accept that the information shared by the FBI may not be the totality of the results of the American investigation.

The narrative follows the investigation along a relative linear path into the different phases as new clues are uncovered. Lee puts different lead actors in front of the camera for different episodes, but then everything links back to the main investigators who put the pieces together.

The series initially shows how the step to collect and catalogue every piece of evidence found on the ground in Lockerbie becomes crucial to connecting the bombing suspects to the Libyan external intelligence agency.

Several characters have recurring roles in different episodes, in part to show the complexity of the international investigation.

The camera returns to family members of the victims, from time to time, as evidence that the grief and feelings of loss from such a tragedy do not go away.

Eddie Marsan plays FBI bomb expert Tom Thurman involved in the investigators’ attempt to pin-point the bombing to the contents of a particular suitcase. The fragments from the suitcase reveal clues that lead investigators to the type of bomb used and the terrorists’ place of origin.

Several other characters enter the script, but the narrative always returns to Orr. The senior investigator in charge who must rally the team, while directing the investigation to follow certain leads. Orr also must deflect criticism from the victims’ families.

At times, the lack of genuine cooperation between Scotland and the United States impedes quicker results, but Lee also shows how some clues simply do not pan out, while the investigative method used does eventually lead to suspects that everyone can agree upon.

The flat tone and tragic atmosphere of the series fits with the surreal nature of the airplane disaster at a time before the more stringent airport security and passenger screening that occurs now.

The Bombing of Pan Am 103 is streaming on Netflix.