The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie is the deadliest act of terrorism in British history.
On December 21, 1988, the plane was en route from London’s Heathrow Airport to New York’s John F Kennedy when a bomb detonated in its hold just 40 minutes into the journey.
The plane broke apart, killing all 259 people on board – mostly Americans – along with 11 local residents on the ground.
It prompted the largest murder investigation in the history of Scottish policing, in collaboration with United States law enforcement and the victims’ families, who were also on a quest for justice.
This investigation is now being revisited in a new Netflix limited series, The Bombing of Pan Am 103.
Before Sex Education star Connor Swindells took on the role of Ed McCusker, the Strathclyde Police detective sergeant who was on duty at the time of the bombing, he didn’t know much about the tragedy.
“The whole filming process was really informative for me, and I think this is a moment in history that people who aren’t familiar with it should be. It’s so important to memorialise the people who lost their lives, both those on the flight and those on the ground,” says Swindells, who also featured in Barbie.
“And I think it is also important for people to understand the toll that was taken on those who tried to help as best they could – the police force and the surrounding community in the Lockerbie area.”
The Bombing of Pan Am 103 is a six-part series which recounts the true story of the tragic Lockerbie disaster, from its heartbreaking beginning to its gripping conclusion, exploring the fallout of the explosion and the careful investigation into the perpetrators.
In preparing to tell a real-life story, the SAS: Rogue Heroes actor had the opportunity to meet with the real McCusker, who provided valuable insights.
“He’s an incredibly warm, friendly man who was so generous with his time. He had me around for lunch at his house. He was so generous with trying to recount as much as possible from the events that occurred, lifting me up with as much support as he could. He’s been a great resource, not just to me but to everyone on this production, and I’m very grateful,” says Swindells.
But he admits that being part of a drama that’s based on a real story like this affects every little decision you make.
“There is definitely a pressure, a want and a need to do justice to the people involved and to the events. It’s the hardest I’ve ever worked, I’d say. It’s been a real lesson in trying to do justice to the truth every single day, which is how it should be,” explains Swindells.
“Playing a real person, someone you have access to, it means that you have this breadth of resource. There’s clinical information, logistical information, but also just from talking to them, you get a sense of how they communicate, what drives them, what frustrates them. All those little details that are hard to put into words, you get those nuances,” adds 44-year-old Suits star Patrick J. Adams, who portrays a FBI investigator Dick Marquise.
“As an actor, this is like a feeding frenzy because usually you have to make that up, you have to come up with that out of the ether. When you get to just sit and talk to a person, you get to wash yourself in all of these details. You’re still different, you’re still a version of the character, it’s still me playing someone, but I’m not doing an impersonation of Dick.
“I have a very good idea of what drives him; what he wanted to accomplish when he got up in the morning, how he did things, how he was organised, why this mattered to him and how it changed over time. As an actor, I’ve felt like I’ve had so much more at my disposal than I typically do on a set.”
Even though Eddie Marsan, 58, remembers when the event happened, working on The Bombing of Pan Am 103 taught him so much more about the real events and Tom Thurman, the FBI explosives expert whom he portrays.
“What surprised me most was the collaboration, how so many people – locally in Lockerbie and internationally – came together to solve this crime. They couldn’t move on unless it was solved, and everybody came together to do that; that’s what I found most fascinating,” says Marsan, who featured in Sherlock Holmes.
“When I met Tom Thurman, who I play, I found him to be a fascinating man because he loves his job, and he is a great puzzle solver. The chance to play him in this story was the reason I wanted to do it.
“He’s quite impish; he loves nothing better than to be in a laboratory solving problems. Tom is very inspired by his job; he was a bomb disposal expert for years and then became a lecturer. He finds the puzzle of it all incredibly rewarding, trying to find out who planted the bomb and working everything out.
“We had to be very careful and very respectful because this is an event where people lost their lives. That was already taken care of in the writing room, because the writers were so conscious of that responsibility. What I wanted to do was get to know Tom and find out as much as I could about him, in order to give a respectful and accurate performance.”
The Bombing of Pan Am 103 comes to Netflix on Thursday, July 30.
