NMVVRC – Pan Am Flight 103 Terrorist Bombing

The Pan Am Flight 103 Terrorist Bombing:

December 20, 2022

Dean G. Kilpatrick, Ph. D., Daniel W. Smith Ph. D., and Connie Best Ph. D.

National Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center 

Lessons Learned from Family Member Survivors

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103, bound for New York City from London, exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people on board the plane and 11 people on the ground. There were 190 Americans, 32 citizens of the United Kingdom, and citizens from 19 other countries on the plane. This horrific act of international terrorism shocked the world and, in the United States, had reverberating and devastating impacts on the surviving family members and our entire Nation.

Subsequent investigation by law enforcement determined that the cause of the explosion was an explosive device planted on the plane. Two Libyan citizens were indicted on charges of murder in 1991, but the government of Libya would not permit them to be extradited and tried under Scottish law at a court in the Netherlands until 2000, 12 years after the terrorist attack occurred. The trial, which began in May 2000 and concluded in January 2001, resulted in one defendant being acquitted and the other being convicted.

On December 12, 2022, almost 34 years after the terrorist attack, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a third suspect has been arrested and indicted on charges of making the explosive device used in the terrorist attack https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/pan-am-flight-103-terrorist-suspect-custody-1988-bombing-over-lockerbie-scotland.

However, this news is likely bittersweet for the survivors of those murdered on December 21, 1988. On one hand, they are likely gratified that a suspect charged with making the bomb that killed their loved ones is finally being brought to trial. On the other hand, 34 years after the terrorist attack occurred, they face a new series of stressful and protracted criminal justice proceedings.

U.S. law did not authorize the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) to provide services to victims of the Pan Am Flight 103 families until 1996. Furthermore, legal and funding technicalities precluded widespread delivery of services to the Pan Am 103 families until 1999. Many of these services focused on preparing family members for the trial and included a toll-free information number, secure website, funding for mental health counseling, travel funds to attend the trial, the provision of family liaison officers at the trial court, secure waiting areas at the trial court, and a Lockerbie Trial Handbook. OVC’s then Director, Kathryn Turman, thought that it was important to obtain an independent assessment of how well these services were working, and how well the family members were doing during and after the trial.

Consequently, three of us who were at the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center and are now at the National Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center (NMVVRC) received a grant from OVC to conduct two surveys of these family members. The first survey occurred during the trial in the fall of 2000. A follow up survey was conducted about seven weeks after the trial was over in 2001. In addition to collecting information about the services described above, family members were also asked about the psychological, physical, and financial impact of the crime, and were provided with an opportunity to make recommendations for improving services. We published an article in 2002 titled Postterrorism Services for Victims and Surviving Family Members https://www.nmvvrc.org/media/0cdnqrla/lessons-from-pan-am-103.pdf that highlighted the following important findings from the two victim surveys.

Many family members reported having sustained substantial psychological, physical, and financial impact after the death of their loved one:

• Over half (54%) had missed work after the bombing due to poor health, emotional distress, or demands of the investigation.
• Forty percent had increased health care expenses after the bombing.
• Over half (53%) reported increased conflict and other problems with family members.
• Nearly three quarters (72%) reported great difficulty coping after the bombing, and 57% said they had a need for individual counseling or therapy.
• About seven weeks after the trial, which was approximately 12 years after the bombing, 37% of family members reported sleep difficulties, 13% were bothered by frightening thoughts and images, and 12% expressed feelings of hopelessness about the future within the past week.
• Only 36% had actually sought mental health services.

Family members expressed a strong need to have accurate information and advocacy:

• Eighty-one percent of victims reported a need for better information about the bombing and investigation.
• Three-fourths of victims (75%) said they needed someone to advocate for their interests in the criminal justice system and with government agencies.
• The percentage of family members who were satisfied with how well they were kept informed was low before the indictment (35%), improved somewhat after the indictment (49%), then improved substantially to 84% after OVC started providing services.

All the OVC services were viewed as helpful by family members, tended to be well-utilized, and those who used them were quite satisfied with them:

• More than 90% of family members viewed all OVC services described above as helpful.
• The most frequently used services were the Lockerbie Trial Handbook (75%) and the secure website (61%).
• Almost all family members were satisfied with support services during trial (99%), services provided by OVC (99%), explanations of how the court works and what to expect (98%), and how informed they were about court proceedings (98%).

We believe that the lessons we learned from the Pan Am 103 families are directly applicable to what they will need in the upcoming criminal justice proceedings. First, many family members are likely to still have mental heath issues that will be exacerbated by the pending court proceedings, and they will need help dealing with them. Second, they will need information, advocacy, and support during these proceedings. Third, what OVC did during the first trial can only be characterized as a great success, so it would be wise to consider replicating what was done previously as preparations for these proceedings begin.

Finally, what we learned has had broader implications for victims and survivors of other mass violence incidents. When the NMVVRC opened in 2017, the valuable “lessons learned” from the survivors of the Pan Am 103 terrorist attack guided our efforts to create a Center that is survivor-centered and trauma-informed, and that takes the advice of Pan Am 103 survivors to heart:

We at the NMVVRC are fortunate that, 22 years ago, we were given the opportunity to listen and learn from the survivors of the Pan Am 103 terrorist attack. We thank the family members who taught us so much by participating in the surveys. When mass violence survivors speak, we listen.  Their tragic experiences have a “silver lining” of providing information that makes it possible to improve support and services for other mass violence survivors. Their willingness to share their experiences has helped countless others, and has made something good come out of something unspeakably terrible.

On Wednesday, we honor those who were killed and their families in remembrance of December 21, 1988, and we express our strong solidarity with the survivors of this horrific terrorist attack.

Dean G. Kilpatrick Ph.D. is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina, Director of the National Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center (NMVVRC), and Director of the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center (NCVRTC).

Daniel W. Smith Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina, Director of the Technology Division of the NMVVRC, and a faculty member in the NCVRTC.

Connie L. Best Ph.D. is a Professor Emerita in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina who was the founding Director of the Response and Resilience Division of the NMVVRC and a faculty member at the NCVRTC.

This product was supported by Cooperative Agreements #2017-MU-GX-K114 and #2020-V7-GX-K002, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this product are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.