Civilian airlines have emerged as one of the terrorist's deadliest weapons.
Terrorism made a violent entry into the modern age
with the first ever multiple hijacking at Dawson's Field in Jordan.
Eighteen years later it reached new depths of tragedy
with the explosion of pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
This is a dramatisation of events as they happened on two days that shook the world.
It's September the 11th 1970.
In England the entertainment world is rocked as the Beatles officially announce
their decision to split up.
US air strikes continue on Cambodia.
In America, the Boeing 747 makes its maiden voyage from New York to London.
And in Jordan,
it's Day 6 in a hostage situation which has seized the world's attention.
Dawson's Field.
A disused British air base in the Jordanian desert is the setting
for one of the most audacious air terrorist attacks in history.
In the first ever multiple hijacking, three planes from America,
Switzerland and Britain have been forced to land on the desert airstrip.
The popular Front for the Liberation of palestine
or pFLp are holding world governments to ransom.
265 hostages are on board.
The passengers from around the world have now been held captive
inside the three planes for up to a week.
The popular Front have renamed Dawson's Field, 'Revolution Airstrip'.
There's just 36 hours until the end of the terrorists deadline.
Unless Arab prisoners are released from European
and Israeli jails they're going to blow up the aircraft with the passengers on board.
24 year old Bassam Abu-Sharif is coordinating the operation.
He helped set up the popular Front for the Liberation of palestine three years ago
and is now the spokesman for the extremist group.
Bassam was one of the first to greet the kidnapped passengers
on their arrival in Jordan.
I went on board to tuck them in and help keep them calm.
Don't worry, it's only a hijack, nobody will be hurt,
I said, in my best bedside manner,
while my pFLp colleagues went around
wiring detonators to explosives placed under their seats.
Fluent in both French and English,
Bassam is central to negotiations,
he is issuing the terrorists demands to their international targets.
By now we had the world by the throat.
We felt invincible. Unstoppable.
We could do just about anything we liked.
We had taken power.
The BFLp warn that any stupid intervention to free the hostages
will only endanger their lives.
Five countries are being blackmailed by Bassam's group
America, Israel, West Germany, Switzerland and Great Britain are all members of
what's been dubbed 'the Crisis Cartel',
but the key to the hostages fate lies 2,500 miles away...
One of the popular Front's most notorious members didn't make it to Dawson's Field.
26 year old Leila Khaled was arrested on Day 1 of the mission
when her hijack attempt went disastrously wrong.
She led the most dangerous assignment
to seize an Israeli El-AI flight with armed guards on board.
Her accomplice was killed in an aerial gun battle.
Leila was captured and the plane made an emergency landing at Heathrow airport.
She now finds herself locked in a British prison cell powerless over events.
Leila Khaled and Abu-Sharif are senior members of one of
palestine's most extreme militia units,
known collectively as the "Fedayeen", or "men of sacrifice".
Traditionally,
the popular Front have engaged in guerrilla warfare against Israel
and its allies in their fight to reclaim what they believe is their homeland.
But in 1968,
they tent to air piracy to try and achieve their political objective.
"This is the captain speaking.
These guys are serious.
They got guns, they got grenades and the whole works.
If there is any trickery, they are going to blow up the airplane."
Already in this mission,
they've destroyed a 747 aircraft in Cairo having given
the passengers three minutes to evacuate.
Hailed the 'Heroine of the palestinians',
Leila Khaled's release has become central to the pFLp's demands.
Following her arrest,
the terrorists carried out the last of the hijackings.
To negotiate Khaled's release, they needed British hostages.
Three palestinian sympathisers hijacked B.O.A. C VC-10 en route
from Bahrain to London with 52 British citizens on board.
On arrival at 'Revolution Airstrip' the guerrillas re-named the plane 'Leila'.
The British government now has as much
at stake in the unfolding hostage crisis as anyone.
On board the British VC-10,
the heat inside the cabin is 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
The passengers some on their holidays,
others on business, many with children returning to boarding schools
have now been held captive for over 48 hours.
They've been surviving on Red Cross food & medical parcels.
One of the British passengers,
Major Norman Fawkes-potts is a descendant of Guy Fawkes.
He's now on the receiving end of a gunpowder plot.
All the passangers passports were seized on arrival
and stamped with 'Revolution Airstrip' visas.
They have been told their release depends upon
the UK government freeing Leila Khaled.
At the British Embassy in Jordan,
the man charged with negosiating the release of the hostages is meeting
with the UK Ambassador.
"I've been to see Bassam Abu-Sharif"
It's Michael Adam's first diplomatic assignment.
He normally working in the Middle East as a journalist,
but now he's Britain's chief negotiator in the crisis.
An odd venture this...
and I don't have high hopes of its outcome.
But it seems worth trying.
Neither trusts the other. I hope they will trust me.
And that is the slender basis for my to come and try my luck.
In London, prime Minister Edward Heath is under pressure and facing a tough choice.
If he gives in to the terrorists demands it could prompt more hijackings.
But he can't afford to risk the lives of the hostages.
He's relying on Michael Adams to find a solution.
PFLp office Bassam Al Sharif has accepted Adams
as one of their preferred negotiators.
But international politics are tying the British hands.
The countries targeted by the guerrillas have committed to negotiating together.
But the crisis cartel is split.
The Europeans will consider a deal,
but Israel refuses to give in to any terrorist demands.
This is the BBC world service.
The middle east was alive today with rumours discounted
by the US Embassy in Beirut
that the US sixth fleet was steaming eastward through the Mediterranean
to back up an operation to snatch the hostages out of the guerrillas hands."
Suddenly, Bassam and his colleagues hear the BBC World Service
reporting that America and Israel are planning to storm the airfield.
Military forces are being mobilised in the area.
The Jordanian army surrounding the airstrip is also primed
and ready to attack.
...the fighters felt the tension waiting for the commander's orders.
They came out like bullets coming out of a machine gun.
Be ready and on full alert.
On board the British plane,
the commander's frustration
and fear of attack is making their next move unpredictable.
One of the more extreme commandos,
who the passengers have nicknamed 'Bombshell Bessie,' tells them:
We don't want to kill you, but if we have to... we shall.
At the British Embassy in Amman, there is a glimmer of hope.
They're telling London that the guerrillas are ready to do a deal
with the British Government.
If Britain breaks from the crisis cartel, and agrees to release Leila Khaled,
all the British passengers will be set free.
It's an agonising dilemma for the government.
Saving the British captives could leave the other hostages more exposed.
It would also anger America & Israel.
The British government wants to buy more time
and promises to give an answer tomorrow.
But time is running out.
Leila spends her sixth night in custody.
The fate of her and the British hostages rests with the negotiators.
It's the start of what is to be the final day on 'Revolution Airstrip'.
Bassam is heading back to Amman to talk with his leadership about today's plans.
There's just 22 hours left until the end of their deadline
and they're determined to keep control.
We knew the situation had become very serious.
The countdown had started.
On board the BOAC VC-10,
the hostages have eaten a breakfast of left overs.
Yesterday's red cross supplies were turned back by the pFLp commandos.
There is increased tension today.
The hostages are frightened, and tired.
Leila Khaled is enjoying her first wash since
she was taken into custody 6 days ago.
There's still no word from the British government about her release.
Frustrated with the stand-off,
Michael Adams takes matters into his own hands.
"Michael Adams to see Bassam."
"Mr Adams" "Bassam"
"How are you?" "I am well thank you"
"Erm, so what I have done is I have draughted a communice'...
He asks Bassam to sign up to a joint commitment.
"Yes OK I will read it.
"Thank you"
"But you are aware that we don't have any guarantees to tell you what..."
If they free the hostages he'll do everything he can to secure
the release of Leila Khaled.
Bassam agrees but insists on an official announcement
from the British government backing the deal.
"Thank you very much" "Bye bye"
Both men have to trust the other to deliver on their promises.
The lives of the hostages are at stake.
At the Intercontinental hotel in Amman are over 200 hostages released
earlier in the hijack crisis.
Bassam persuaded his more hard-line colleagues
to free mostly women and children.
Many of them still have family held captive onboard.
At Dawson's Field,
the rest of the women and children are being separated from the men.
Without warning, the guerrillas have announced their release.
Their ordeal over, they're taken to the Intercontinental hotel.
As the passangers left the camouflage trucks of the royal Geordanian army
they pushed their way through the barrage of soldiers
and press and friends into the hotel.
The babies they carried some only two to three months old left
on the shoulders of their mothers.
Now the children are coming through,
the British children there must be three or four hundred people
waiting to receive them at the hotel.
All the children look tired, but they look happy.
After a week on board some think they understand their captors mentality.
They are desperate men,
they feel they have been done a wrong and to get their ends,
they will do what they say.
We heard the BBC World Service News and they seem to think they are kidding,
and they are not.
We've seen the stuff they put on the plane...
it was loaded with dynamite."
But militants on the ground are angry at their leadership's concessions.
They've decided to handle things their own way.
Initially, there had been over 400 hostages.
Now there are only 141 left.
They know they have been kept for a reason.
The hostages saved until last mainly diplomats,
Israeli and British nationals and air crews
are all rounded up and crammed into the guerrillas vehicles.
They're told nothing about what's going to happen to them.
The palestinian terrorists are about to spark shockwaves around the world.
For 20 minutes explosions rock the desert stillness
Millions of pounds worth of planes are destroyed.
Emerging from the smoke, the guerrillas convoy starts to move.
They held the passengers' buses long enough to see the planes go up.
The smoke can be seen 45 miles away at the Intercontinental Hotel.
Their are emotional scenes as the buses arrive,
many had feared they would never see their loved ones again.
'Could you mind taking a minute to say what it was like out there? '
'Well... it was rough. That's all I can say.
Right now I'm a little too shaken to say anything else.'
But as everyone enjoys the celebrations it's becomes clear
that the crisis is far from over.
Fifty-six of the hostages are missing.
In the confusion, they've been smuggled out to four secret locations around Amman.
Believing they were on their way home,
the fifty-six, including Major potts and seven other British,
now find themselves in the midst of a war torn city.
The palestinian guerrillas
and Jordanian army have been battling for control of Amman all year.
The Jordanians,
angered by the international scandal brought to their country,
have intensified the fighting since the start of the hostage crisis.
At the British Embassy, news comes through of events at Dawson's Field.
"...what about the hostages?
I see. Well thank you for letting me know.
They've blown up the three planes..."
"oh my god"
"but they've removed the hostages..."
It's not what Adam's had been expecting.
Bassam's forces have raised the stakes yet again.
"Are the British amongst those?".
'There are some British... '
The demands stay the same.
There's just 14 hours until the end of the deadline.
Adams believes that this is final warning.
He fears for the safety of the remaining hostages.
They start a frantic telex conference
with the UK pressing for the release of Leila Khaled.
If we do not within a few hours give an assurance
that we are at least prepared to release Leila Khaled,
something very serious shall happen.
These people are quite capable of killing hostages.
The British government hold an emergency meeting.
Despite US & Israeli anger and his own grave concerns,
prime Minister Heath decides they have no choice.
In an extraordinary move, he capitulates.
Britain agrees to issue a public statement about Khaled's release.
The BBC World Service later reports the crucial statement in Arabic.
Bassam's group have played hard ball with a Western government and won.
A day after the destruction of the planes,
Bassam's told by BOAC representatives,
that the plane was carrying a one ton shipment of gold.
But the pFLp never returned to the airfield.
In the following days,
Jordan launched all-out war against the palestinian guerrillas.
In the following months which known as 'Black September'
around 5,000 troups were killed on all sides.
Bassam escaped to the mountains.
Jordanian snatch squads freed 18 of the remaining hostages.
The rest were later released by the pFLp.
Leila Khaled and six palastinian prisoners held in Europe
were returned later in the month.
Israel released no Arab prisoners.
Until Black September, hijackings were still rare.
In the years following events at Dawson's Field,
there were hundreds of hijackings.
Terrorism had entered a new age.
In the end, at Dawson's Field, no hostages were harmed.
18 years later it was a different outcome.
It's the 21st December 1988.
Mikhael Gorbachev has been elected president of the Soviet Union.
An inquiry has started into the North Sea disaster on the piper Alpha oil platform.
The IRA renews its mainland attacks after the shooting
of three IRA suspects in Gibraltar.
And in a small Scottish town, preparations for Christmas are getting underway.
It's four days before Christmas, in the farming town of Lockerbie.
A quiet rural backwater situated on the southwest of Scotland not far
from the English border.
Ella Ramsden celebrated Christmas a week early as her son Jimmy
and his family have to get back to their home in West Germany.
"Our Christmas was wonderful.
It was the first time the family had all been together in five years."
Since she lost her husband 7 years ago,
the 59 year old has lived alone in the house with her Jack Russell.
At Heathrow airport, a pan Am jumbo is just arriving from San Francisco.
After being joined by a new crew
it will become pan Am Flight 103 - destination Detroit, USA.
Inside Terminal 3, forty-six year old
Jaswant Basuta is anxious to get back home to Tarrytown, New York.
He's due to start a new job as a car mechanic in the morning,
and is looking forward to spending Christmas with his wife and two children.
Basuta had come to Europe earlier in the month to attend
his brother-in-law's wedding in Belfast.
He checks in two suitcases for pan Am Flight 103
to Detroit via JFK Airport in New York.
Terminal 3 is busy with the Christmas rush.
Many passengers for Flight 103 have already checked in,
others are still arriving on feeder flights from across Europe.
Three miles outside Lockerbie, a photographer for the local paper,
Robin Bryden is getting ready for Christmas with his wife, Susan.
They both work on the local newspaper, the "Dumfries & Galloway Standard.
"This week's edition is finished,
so Robin and Susan have got a few days off.
Susan is three months pregnant with their first child.
They've recently told their parents the news,
and are expecting them all round for Christmas day.
In the bar of Terminal 3,
Jaswant Basuta is with relatives who are at the airport to see him off.
As a Sikh, he's not supposed to drink alcohol
but as it's a special occasion he makes an exception.
In the Maid of the Seas cockpit,
The American crew are running through final checks before take-off.
Captain James Bruce MacQuarrie is in charge.
The 55-year old captain is a veteran of nearly 11,000 flight hours.
Sitting alongside is First Officer, Ray Wagner.
The third member of the cockpit crew,
Flight Engineer Jerry Avritt,
checks the distribution of fuel for the 3,500 mile journey.
Pan Am 103 is nearly finished boarding.
Jaswant Basuta's brother-in-law reminds him it's time to go.
Basuta has a reputation for missing flights.
It's a standing joke within the family.
But he's due to start a new job in the morning
so he can't afford to miss his plane this evening.
The crew are anxious to get going for the 8 hour flight.
When Jaswat Basuta arrives at Gate 14, he finds it's already closed.
"Are you mister Bassuta yeah?"
"Yeah, I have got my boarding pass and ive got luggage already on the plane"
"im sorry sir but the gates are closed.
Boarding is finished."
But security refuse to let him board.
They decide not to pull his bags off as it will delay the flight even further.
"We've got to get away, im terribly sorry"
Basuta has some explaining to do at home.
At twenty five minutes past six,
Captain MacQuarrie finally gets permission for take-off.
The plane climbs through the heavy cloud above London.
They need to make up time if the flight's to arrive in New York on schedule.
It's heading north up the west coast of Britain into Scotland
before crossing the Atlantic.
In Lockerbie, everyone's starting to get into the holiday mood.
The pubs are full of Christmas drinkers.
Others are out delivering presents and catching up with friends and relatives.
Many are enjoying a quiet night in.
Ella Ramsden is settling down to open today's delivery of Christmas cards.
In the Bryden household,
Susan is washing up after dinner
while Robin relaxes in front of the television watching "This Is Your Life."
Pan Am 103 is 35 minutes into its flight, flying at an altitude of 31,000 feet.
Air Traffic Controller lan Topp is watching its progress.
There are no other flights at that altitude to worry him.
Topp is about to go for a coffee break,
when he notices something unusual on his radar.
"Clipper 103 Scottish do you read me?
Clipper 103 Scottish, do you read me?
Clipper 103 Scottish do you read me?
Clipper 103 Scottish do you read me?"
He tries to contact the crew.
"Clipper 103 Scottish do you read me?"
There is no response.
6 miles above the people of Lockerbie, there is an explosion on board flight 103.
Topp contacts other air traffic controllers.
"This is Scottish centre.
Do you have any sign of clipper 103?"
But none of them can see Flight 103 either.
The pan Am flight is now breaking up on Topp's radar screen,
spreading out over the southwest of Scotland.
The people of Lockerbie are oblivious to what's about to hit them.
With the motors still running, the wreckage thunders down at 600mph.
It takes 36 seconds to hit the ground.
The planes fuel tanks explode on impact.
A 300 foot fireball engulfs the town.
Robin Bryden is stunned by what he sees.
"It was like the old pictures of the atom bomb.
There was a huge mushroom cloud of fire above the town.
It was a terrifying sight."
Moments later,
the rear fuselage section of the jumbo jet slams into Ella Ramsdens's house.
But the kitchen door won't open, buckled by the force of the impact.
She desperately tries to escape.
"I thought my last moment had come,
when all of a sudden the noise stopped.
There was a terrible quietness ...which I will never forget..."
photographer Robin Bryden races via back streets to the centre of Lockerbie...
Initially, many think an RAF fighterjet has crashed.
There are also reports that a petrol station has exploded.
Within minutes of the impact, fire, police, ambulance controls,
realise they are dealing with a major incident.
Hundreds of emergency vehicles from across Scotland
and the North of England respond to the unfolding disaster.
The biggest crash site is Sherwood Crescent
a quiet street of modern bungalows next to the main Scotland to England road.
90 tons of aviation fuel has exploded here.
Robin Bryden arrives and is confronted by an inferno.
He's one of the first photographers on the scene.
"Initially I had no idea what was going on.
Everyone felt helpless.
I covered the event as I saw it.
In the darkness, I could see bodies lying on the ground..."
In his haste, he's only brought one roll of film with him.
The photographs that he takes will appear
on the front pages of newspapers around the world the next day.
Royal Air Force search helicopters arrive, picking out the main areas of wreckage.
Fire, debris and bodies are all over the town and surrounding countryside.
There's a trail of personal possessions
and human life spreading along a 40 mile corridor.
One of the engines is embedded in a housing estate
at the north end of the town.
Ella Ramsden's house, half a mile from Sherwood Crescent,
is one of the biggest crash sites.
Kevin Milligan, a neighbours son-in-law, is astonished to find Ella still alive.
Ella's survival is miraculous but some Lockerbie residents are not so fortunate.
"As far as I know I've lost my brother in law eh... my sister in law...
their house is jus a thirty foot crater.
Where their house was...
I can't even find the house.
It's gone, like."
Hospitals across Scotland are on stand-by.
But there's no need there's no sign of any survivors.
The only people to need medical treatment are 12 locals from Sherwood Crescent,
all for relatively minor injuries.
Dumfries & Galloway Constabulary the smallest police force in mainland Britain,
find themselves dealing with the biggest air disaster the UK has ever seen.
At 7pm only one policeman was on duty in Lockerbie.
Over the course of the night hundreds of extra officers
from forces throughout Scotland are drafted in.
Teams of officers are instructed to corner off each area
of wreckage to ensure nothing is disturbed.
They know the disaster could turn into a murder investigation.
Heathrow police have been made aware
that a passenger failed to board the flight after check-in.
They're keen to speak to a Mr Bassuta about
why his baggage was onboard the doomed passengerjet while he wasn't.
Jaswant Basuta is unaware of the fate of the flight.
He's had a remarkably lucky escape.
But the police now think he may have had something to do with the incident
and promptly take him away for questioning.
"...interview with Jaswant Basutta at 20:45 on the 21st December 1988
when did you come to England?
When he tells the officer where's he's been visiting he becomes a key suspect.
"I was attending a wedding in Belfast..."
"Belfast"
"Yes"
"Have you got connections their?"
"Yeah lve got a couple of friends...
and lve been their a couple of times before"
"What was in your luggage"
I had some christmas presents for my family
and some gifts were given to me from relations"
"Listen I didn't miss this flight deliberately"
As Jaswant protests his innocence,
news is spreading of tonight's horrifying events...
"Good evening.
A pan American Boeing 747 airliner flying
from London to New york crashed tonight in the Scottish borders.
Police say there have been many casualties,
they don't yet know how many, or if anybody on the plane survived.
Flight 103 left Heathrow at 6 o'clock this evening,
bound for John F Kennedy airpot, New York."
Across the Atlantic,
relatives expecting to collect loved ones at are confronted by the breaking news.
"Oh... my baby"
177 of the 259 people onboard are American.
Pan Am is unable to officially confirm who has died.
"...we are right now formulating the passenger lists.
We are confirming who was on board and we will begin notification to next of kin"
But most know there's little chance of survivors.
The death toll on the ground is also unknown.
At Lockerbie town hall,
locals desperately check a list of residents for the names of friends
and family who have survived.
Jaswant Basuta's English relatives have seen the news reports about the tragedy.
They believe he is one of the victims.
Jaswant has been held at Heathrow police station for the last four hours.
But the police finally accept Basuta's story and tell him he's free to go.
"Okay okay ill see you soon, goodbye"
In the early hours,
Robin Bryden goes to the newspaper offices of the Dumfries & Galloway Standard.
The staff of the Standard work through the night to cover the unfolding events.
Next day they produce a special edition of their paper reacting to the tragedy.
Robin's photographs are immediately wired around the world.
But he's never credited, nor does he receive any payment for his work.
"I didn't mind not getting any recognition.
For me, what was important was documenting the tragedy.
I was satisfied that I had done a good job in difficult circumstances."
As day breaks the full picture of the disaster is all too clear.
In Sherwood Crescent,
the exploding fuel-tanks left a crater 155 feet long and 40 feet wide.
Six homes have been obliterated.
Eleven Lockerbie residents have died in the blast.
Of all the victims, 17 bodies would never be found.
But there are some unexpected survivors
the drivers and passengers in the burnt-out cars have all managed to escape.
Ella Ramsden's survival is all the more surprising in daylight.
On the few remaining slates of what had once been her roof,
a body lies spread-eagled and battered.
In the days that follow 70 other bodies are dug out of the ruins of her home.
"Memories of the night disaster came to 71 park place will never leave the woman
who lived there.
Ella Ramsden's is the most miraculous survival story of all."
"I'm so sorry for the people that have died, and their families.
It's more difficult for them.
I've only lost a house, that's all."
The cockpit remains eerily in tact.
The bodies of the crew are removed and taken to the town hall
which has turned into a make-shift morgue.
Debris from the plane is spread over 850 square miles.
The massive task of combing the countryside
for every piece of wreckage, begins.
It's the grim job of the search crews to gather all the victims.
Priority is given to moving bodies that are in public view,
particularly those of children.
There were 12 children under the age of 10 onboard,
the youngest was 9 months old.
The final death toll stands at 270.
It was a week later before crash investigators confirmed
that they had found proof of the cause...
"It was a bomb that blasted the pan American Jumbo Jet
out of the sky above Scotland a week ago tonight, almost to the hour.
Salvage team and air crash investigators have found the remains
of a high performance, plastic explosive."
It would be 12 years before two suspects were charged and brought to trial.
One of them, Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi,
a Libyan intelligence officer,
was found guilty and is currently serving a twenty year
sentence in a Scottish prison
In 2003, Libya agreed to pay over 6 million pounds compensation each,
to the families of victims.
But the Libyan government still refused to accept responsibility
for the worst act of terror on British soil.