Lockerbie: A Search for Truth – Episode 1 Recap & Review

Episode 1

Episode 1 of Lockerbie: A Search for Truth begins in May 2002. We’re at the prison where Dr Jim Swire shows up to see Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a man convicted and responsible for the bombing. As he sits in front of Jim, he asks the man whether he really killed his daughter.

We then cut back to 21st December 1988. We’re in Bromsgrove, England, and Jim and his family see off their youngest daughter, Flora. She’s having her first Christmas away from the family and she heads to Heathrow, ready to fly out. She boards Pan Am Flight 103, unaware that this is going to be her last ever night alive.

In Lockerbie, Scotland, it’s a normal uneventful night and unfortunately, these two seemingly innocuous scenes collide in the worst possible way. At a farm on the outskirts of the town, Flight 103 explodes in mid-air, 38 minutes into the flight.

Debris rains down from the sky, followed, horribly, by dead bodies. The rest of the plane explodes in a fireball that turns Lockerbie into a warzone. Unfortunately, the casualties aren’t just in the air, they’re also on the ground too. A young kid loses his parents in the blast, and is dumfounded as he asks gawking passers where his mum and dad are.

News of this crash hits the Swire household and they’re overcome with grief and shock, especially when they find out Flora definitely made her flight.

The police scramble to get some semblance of order, and a group are sent 3 miles to the farm we saw earlier on to identify the bodies and work out who’s dead. There’s at least 50, according to the farmer who has been counting, but he’s in a state of shock too, cradling a dead babe in his arms.

In the distance, a couple of strange men scramble to their truck. Apparently they’re crash investigators but we don’t see much more of these guys.

As night turns to day, the morbid reality of the situation is realized. 259 people were onboard the flight and are all dead, but others on the ground were killed too, bringing the total number of the deceased to 270. At this point, it’s unknown whether this is an act of terrorism or a mechanical issue. Regardless, fo those affected, life will never be the same again.

Interwoven with news reports from the time, we then cut forward to 4th January 1989. This is 14 days after the disaster, and Margaret Thatcher shows up with the Transport Secretary Paul Channing to greet the families of the deceased.

Channing promises Jim Swire that he will do whatever he can to avenge Flora’s death and right now, the government believe this is a Middle-Eastern attack. Among the families is Murray Guthrie, a journalist we’ve been following briefly across the episode thus far. Given Jim is a doctor, he gives some gentle persuasion over blagging his way in given his doctor credentials to identify Flora.

Jane implores her husband not to but Jim refuses to listen. He does manage to find Flora but he’s shocked to his core, tears stinging his eyes, when he officially identifies her.

We then cut to February 1989. We’re 47 days after the crash and Jane is suffering from PTSD. As for Murray, he’s persistent and shows up to see Jim. He’s been looking through the crash and there appears to have been an anonymous phone call through to Helsinki from the US Embassy last year regarding a potential terrorist attack of this nature.

The Embassy dismissed it as a hoax and the public never got the warning… but those at the airline seemingly did. This explains why there were some empty seats onboard which would have been for the staff. Furthermore, it would seem that there were explosive devices onboard, backing up the earlier theory of a terrorist attack.

Jim has renewed vigour to look into this in more detail, determined to get justice for Flora and all those who lost their lives. Jim shows to see the Transport Minister, but Paul Channing shrugs it off, claiming that it wasn’t serious enough to inform the public. He made a choice based on the “best advice at the time” and goes on to reiterate how they get weekly threats. Although Paul promises to look into things… he’s actually fired not long after as part of Thatcher’s cabinet shuffle.

Jim and Jane show up to see the other families, who remain steadfast in discovering the truth. 7 months since the crash, they’re all still in the dark and no closer to learning what happened. Jim takes the lead though and points out that they need to find out why there’s so much secrecy and how on earth a bomb got onboard.

As a result of his qualities, the families unite and decide to appoint Jim Swire as their spokesperson. After relentless grafting, we cut forward 9 months to September 1989. Jim has managed to gain a meeting with Parkinson, the new Transport Minister.

Parkinson is a slimy individual, a typical elitist conservative MP and he patronizes Jim and the others as they discuss the numerous failures from the airline and the government for not acting upon warnings they received. There are clearly legitimate concerns, and the government knew and held back.

While Jim is very bullheaded and goes in hard on Parkinson, Jane takes a much more tactile approach. Her harrowing account of Flora’s final moments falling from the sky strike a chord, especially when she counts up to 15. 15 seconds that Flora may have been conscious in mid-air. As a result, Parkinson decides to send this request across to the Prime Minister.

In November 1989, 11 months after the flight, Margaret Thatcher decides not to open an investigation into the flight. Jim and Jane watch the news report, and the former promises that he will never stop until they find the answer to everything.

This cuts us back to 2002, where Jim is much older and in the prison, intending to speak to al-Megrahi, who may well be behind the bombings.

The Episode Review

The first episode of Lockerbie gets off to an intense and absolutely gripping start. Much like Chernobyl, this show begins with a tragic, harrowing accident and then works to investigate what happened leading up to this – and whether it could have been prevented. Given the shuffling Transport Ministers, and the desire to keep kicking the can down the road, I think it’s fair to assume that there’s definitely foul play involved here!

For those unaware of the case, Lockerbie does a good job adding in archival clips from the news at the time to flesh more of this out, and the entire episode is helped along of course by Colin Firth’s excellent performance as the grief-stricken father determined to find out the truth.

All of this leads to a dramatic ending, where we’re going to start discovering answers – which is likely to cause a lot of drama along the way. For now though, Lockerbie gets off to an excellent start.