Lockerbie: A Search for Truth

It’s been 36 years since Pan Am Flight 103 fell from the sky over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 passengers and crew, as well as 11 locals on the ground.

Yet in 2025 a new suspect is set to face trial in May. That gives you some idea of the complex path for justice which has plagued families of those who perished when a bomb exploded mid-air -years before the 9/11 disaster.

One man campaigning for justice has been British GP Dr. Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was on her way to the US to spend Christmas with her American boyfriend. She died aged just 23 years old on 21st December 1988.

As the disaster did for so many, it shattered the Swire family but in the new 5 part UK / US series, Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, we see the quest for justic through Jim’s eyes.

Colin Firth portrays the father and doctor driven by anguish and a lack of information, badgering government for answers and to discover who was responsible for his daughter’s death.

Lockerbie, with only a few thousand residents 120km south of Glasgow, was catapulted into the international spotlight that fateful night. It is tragically, and alarmingly, recreated here as a Boeing 747 comes raining down upon the town, as if resembling missiles. So large was the fuselage, it crushed three homes and created a crater in the middle of the town. The instant search and rescue -a cluster of dazed and confused farmers and villagers- is confronted by bodies in trees, strapped to airseats and even dead children.

“There’s more all over. Stopped counting after 50,” says one local.

After Jim Swire learns of his daughter’s death, but is frustrated by a lack of government accountability, he teams with a journalist, Murray Guthrie (Sam Troughton) to begin posing unanswered questions. Why did the US embassy dismiss an early phone call as a hoax yet warn their own staff not to take Flight 103? What information was being kept from families?

Central to his campaign is the desire for an independent inquiry, but it is rejected by the Thatcher govt, briefly represented by the Minister of State for Transport at the time, a younger Michael Portillo.

The unassuming Swire tests the patience of authorities, leading a victims group, challenging airport security and, at one poin, meeting Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi (Nabil Al Raee) to try and have Libyan suspects stand trial. But period politics surrounds the constant pursuit for justice and Swire’s path will face both victory and loss across the decades. It drags on so long, even Wikileaks enters the myriad of leads.

Swire’s obsession threatens the marriage with wife Jane (Catherine McCormack) who is grieving for her daughter, whilst trying to remain supportive of her husband’s stubborn campaign.

“I will never stop, not until we know the answer to everything,” Jim insists.

Colin Firth is outstanding as the mild-mannered GP, pushed into a spotlight he did not seek, but whose single vision is dogmatic and all-consuming. Catherine McCormack sensitively navigates a tenuous path between grief, devotion and frustration.

With the exception of Sam Troughton as a cluey journalist, and Ardalan Esmaili as Libyan suspect Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, there’s surprisingly little room for anyone else across the 5 episodes. Whether as Swire family members, Lockerbie locals, British, American or Libyan officials, most others are relegated to supporting players. But perhaps the performance by Firth and McCormackis so incandescent it suitably places them in their jetstream, pardon the pun.

The series, which draws upon newsreel footage, is produced by the well-regarded Carnival Films (Downton Abbey, The Day Of The Jackal, The Hollow Crown). In 2025 Netflix will also unveil a 6 part drama, Lockerbie, starring Connor Swindells, Merritt Wever and Patrick J. Adams. That will reportedly centre around the two investigations by British and American governments.

Until then, the focus is on the remarkable Dr. Jim Swire, now aged 88, and his most personal quest for justice.

Presumably the producers hope this will do for him what Mr Bates vs the Post Office did for Alan Bates and the innocent subpostmasters of the Brtish Post Office.

After 36 years, it surely deserves to.

Lockerbie: A Search for Truth screens weekly from Thursday January 2 on Binge / 1pm Showcase.