Channon was appointed Secretary of State for Transport on 13 June 1987 . His tenure as Transport Secretary was blighted by several major transport disasters : 31 died in the King 's Cross fire on 18 November 1987 ; 35 were killed when three trains crashed near Britain 's busiest railway station in the Clapham Junction rail crash on 12 December 1988 ; 270 died when Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down by a bomb over Scottish town of Lockerbie in the Lockerbie Disaster on 21 December 1988 ; and 44 died when a British Midland plane crashed beside the M1 motorway in the Kegworth air disaster on 8 January 1989 . He was roughly treated in the House of Commons by Labour 's transport spokesman , John Prescott , who pilloried him for underinvestment in the rail network , and for taking a family holiday to Mustique shortly after the Lockerbie disaster
Pan Am Flight 103
Pan Am Flight 103
Paul Channon