On 21 December 1988 , Pan American Worldways ' Flight 103 from London Heathrow Airport to New York 's John F. Kennedy International Airport exploded over the town of Lockerbie , Scotland , killing 169 Americans and 40 Britons on board . The motive that is generally attributed to Libya can be traced back to a series of military confrontations with the United States Navy in the 1980s in the Gulf of Sidra , the whole of which Libya claimed as its territorial waters . Despite a guilty verdict on January 31 , 2001 by the Scottish High Court of Justiciary which ruled against Abdelbaset al-Megrahi , the bomber , on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder , Libya never formally admitted carrying out the 1988 bombing over Scotland until 2003
Pan American Worldways ' Flight 103
Pan Am Flight 103
United Kingdom–United States relations