Ali Aujali , who served as a Libyan diplomat both under Gaddafi and under the National Transitional Council , claims that Gaddafi ordered that the Boeing 727 , whose flight was assigned the number 1103 , be shot down exactly four years to the day after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in order to demonstrate the negative effects of international sanctions imposed on Libya . According to Aujali , the dictator originally ordered a bomb with a timer to be in the aircraft , but when this failed to explode , he " ordered the aircraft to be knocked out of the sky " . The widow of one British victim , has claimed Libyan families of victims had asked if she had tested her husbands passports for explosive residue . Numerous theories follow the idea that Gaddafi had a hand in the crash , with claims that Gaddafi exploited the accident and used it as propaganda against sanctions from the Pan Am Flight 103 crash
Pan Am Flight 103
Pan Am Flight 103
Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 1103