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Pan Am 103 Condolences Collection

An inventory of the collection at the Pan Am Flight 103/Lockerbie Air Disaster Archives at Syracuse University


Finding aid created by: Cara A. Howe
Date: 2012

Historical Note

At 6:25 pm on December 21, 1988, Pan Am's Clipper Maid of the Seas departed Heathrow Airport in London for New York City's JFK Airport. One half hour later at 7:02 pm London time, as the Boeing 747 leveled off at 31,000 feet just north of the England-Scotland border, an explosion blew a basketball-sized hole in the fuselage. The plane broke apart and plummeted to earth. All 259 passengers of Flight 103 and 11 residents of the town of Lockerbie, Scotland were killed. Among those killed aboard Pan Am Flight 103 were 35 students returning home from a semester of study abroad through Syracuse University. Before long the world would know that it was not a mechanical failure or foul weather that brought down the plane, but a terrorist bomb: a Semtex plastic explosive planted in a Toshiba radio-cassette recorder packed inside a Samsonite suitcase stowed in the plane's forward cargo hold. Only one man would ever be convicted for committing this terrorist act. Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi and fellow Libyan Intelligence agent Lamin Khalifah Fhimah were indicted by the United States in 1991, formally charged by the Scottish authorities in 1999 and tried by an international court at Camp Zeist, Netherlands beginning in 2000. Al-Megrahi's conviction was handed down in 2001. Fhimah was found not guilty. Al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds in 2009, after a terminal cancer diagnosis gave him three months to live. He died three years later. The investigation of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 remains open.

Scope and Content Note

The Pan Am 103 Condolences Collection contains Condolence letters and Remembrances in prayer that were sent to Syracuse University in the aftermath of the December 21, 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that claimed the lives of 270 individuals, including 35 Syracuse University study abroad students. This collection also contains the Thank you letters Syracuse University sent in response to those messages.

Restrictions

Access Restrictions:

Please note that the collection is housed off-site, and advance notice is required to allow time to have the materials brought to the Reading Room on campus.

Use Restrictions:

Written permission must be obtained from the Pan Am Flight 103 Archives and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

Related Material

The Pan Am Flight 103 Archives contains additional materials and information related to the Pan Am 103 Condolences Collection. Related collections include:

Pan Am 103 Correspondence Collection

Victim and Family Collections

Selected Search Terms

Names

Syracuse University -- History.
Syracuse University.

Subjects

Pan Am Flight 103 Bombing Incident, 1988.
Terrorism -- Government Policy -- United States -- Case Studies.
Terrorism -- Government Policy -- United States -- History.
Terrorism -- Government Policy -- United States.
Terrorism -- History -- 20th Century.
Lockerbie (Scotland)

Types of Material

Correspondence.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Pan Am 103 Condolences Collection,
Pan Am Flight 103/Lockerbie Air Disaster Archives
Syracuse University Libraries

Acquisition Information

Transfer from the Office of Undergraduate Studies in 1996.

Processing Information

Materials were placed in acid free folders and acid free boxes.

Arrangement

Materials are arranged chronologically, with the exception of condolence letters from schools, colleges, and universities, which are arranged alphabetically by institution.

Table of Contents

Condolence letters

Remembrances in prayer

Thank you letters

Inventory