The Bombing of Pan Am 103 Filming Locations and Cast Details

Few television dramas arrive carrying a heavier responsibility than The Bombing of Pan Am 103. The six-part factual series revisits the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, but its focus extends far beyond the night of the attack. It follows the painstaking search for evidence, the sometimes uneasy partnership between Scottish and American investigators, and the human cost borne by the victims’ families, the officers assigned to the case and the residents of the Scottish town. All 259 people aboard the aircraft and 11 people on the ground were killed.

Created and lead-written by Jonathan Lee, with two episodes written by Gillian Roger Park, the series was directed by Michael Keillor and developed through extensive conversations with Scottish police officers, personnel from American investigative agencies and relatives of the victims. It premiered on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in May 2025 and arrives globally on Netflix on July 30, 2026.

The production followed the investigation’s international route. Scotland supplied the majority of the locations, Toronto represented Washington, D.C., and Malta hosted scenes connected to the inquiry’s Mediterranean trail. Yet the most important decision concerned Lockerbie itself. The filmmakers used the real town sparingly, separating scenes of remembrance from recreations of destruction.

Where Was The Bombing of Pan Am 103 Filmed?

The Bombing of Pan Am 103 was filmed across Scotland, Toronto and Malta. Production was concentrated around Glasgow and several nearby Scottish towns, including Hamilton, Prestwick, Beith and Bathgate. Limited filming also took place in Lockerbie, principally at memorial and civic locations.

Toronto’s institutional buildings were converted into FBI and Washington government settings, while Valletta and Birgu provided the architecture required for the Maltese section of the investigation. Filming began in Scotland in early 2024 before continuing in Malta and Canada.

Lockerbie Memorial Locations

The production’s most revealing choice was where it refused to film.

Although the story is inseparable from Lockerbie, the filmmakers did not recreate the immediate 1988 aftermath on the town’s streets. Keillor and his team were conscious that asking residents to watch a simulated disaster unfold outside their homes could reopen wounds that had never entirely disappeared. Filming in Lockerbie was consequently limited to approximately two days.

The locations used included Dryfesdale Cemetery, where the Garden of Remembrance honours the 270 victims. Its memorial wall, stone tablets and quiet landscaped grounds appear during the drama’s commemorative material. The cemetery remains one of the central public memorials connected to Flight 103.

The crew also filmed at Tundergarth Church, east of the town, and Lockerbie Town Hall on High Street. These places appear not as substitutes for somewhere else, but as recognisable parts of the community that lived through the attack and its aftermath. Production representatives consulted local officials and residents before permission was granted to film the memorial sequences.

That restraint is significant. Lockerbie appears when the drama is remembering the dead and acknowledging the community. The more physically distressing recreations were moved elsewhere.

Bathgate Recreated Sherwood Crescent

The scenes representing the devastation at Sherwood Crescent were filmed on a specially constructed set in Bathgate, West Lothian.

A replica of the residential street was built so the production could portray the destruction caused when a large section of the aircraft struck the neighbourhood. The set allowed the crew to control wreckage, fire, damaged houses and emergency activity without staging those images in the real Lockerbie streets where residents had experienced them.

The series does not linger on a spectacular reconstruction of the aircraft exploding in mid-air. Instead, it moves into the confusion on the ground, where police officers, emergency workers and townspeople struggle to understand the scale of what has happened. Bathgate therefore became one of the production’s most technically demanding locations, even though viewers are meant to read it entirely as Lockerbie.

Real investigators, including Ed McCusker, Dick Marquise and explosives specialist Tom Thurman, reportedly visited the production and helped the team maintain accuracy in its depiction of the early response.

Glasgow Filming Locations

Glasgow served as the practical centre of the Scottish shoot. Its collection of civic, institutional and late-19th-century buildings gave the production enough architectural variety to recreate locations from the late 1980s and early 1990s without relying excessively on studio interiors.

The ornate Glasgow City Chambers, overlooking George Square, was dressed to represent Swiss courtroom settings. Its ceremonial rooms, marble staircases and imposing municipal design supplied the kind of formal European atmosphere required for the legal side of the story.

The Mitchell Library on North Street had a more flexible assignment. Different sections of the building were transformed into international government spaces, including material associated with Washington’s Capitol Building. Other rooms became cafés supposedly located in Lockerbie and Bo’ness.

That ability to reuse one substantial building for several countries was particularly valuable in a drama that moves from Scottish police rooms to American institutions, European courts and informal meeting places. The Mitchell Library’s corridors, reading rooms and period detailing could be altered without losing the late-20th-century visual character the series required.

Hamilton Ice Rink and Town House

Two important locations were found in Hamilton, around 15 miles southeast of Glasgow.

Hamilton Ice Rink, situated off Muir Street, doubled for Lockerbie Ice Rink. Following the bombing, the real Lockerbie rink became a temporary mortuary because local facilities could not accommodate the number of victims. In the series, the rink scenes underline the scale of the tragedy without turning the setting into spectacle. The size and stark functionality of the Hamilton building allowed the production to recreate that painful chapter in a controlled environment.

Nearby, Hamilton Town House on Cadzow Street was converted into the United States Consulate. Built in the early 20th century, its formal stone exterior and civic interiors fitted the period far more convincingly than a contemporary office complex would have.

The two Hamilton locations perform very different duties. One represents the physical consequences of the attack; the other marks the investigation’s expansion into diplomatic and international territory.

Prestwick Airport Played Three Airports

Rather than filming separately at Heathrow, John F. Kennedy International Airport and Malta International Airport, the production used Glasgow Prestwick Airport for all three.

Terminals, corridors, check-in areas and exterior sections were redressed according to each scene. Period signage, uniforms, vehicles and passenger details helped distinguish one airport from another. Prestwick’s less heavily modernised architecture also made it easier to return the setting to the late 1980s than it would have been at a busier, extensively renovated international hub.

The airport’s multiple identities reflect the growing geographical scale of the investigation. What begins as a crime scene in southern Scotland quickly expands to London, New York, Washington and Malta.

Beith’s Gateside Inn

The fictional Whitehorse Pub, where Lockerbie residents are shown sharing Christmas drinks shortly before debris begins falling over the town, was created at The Gateside Inn, outside Beith in North Ayrshire.

Its traditional exterior and compact public rooms offered the production an established local pub that could be dressed for December 1988. The location provides an ordinary, recognisably communal space before the night is violently interrupted. That normality is what makes the sequence effective. The pub does not announce that history is approaching; it simply looks lived-in.

Toronto Doubled for Washington, D.C.

The Canadian portion of filming was centred in Toronto, Ontario, which represented Washington, D.C., and several American federal locations.

York University, at 4700 Keele Street, was used for the FBI Headquarters. Its large institutional buildings and modernist campus design gave the production the scale of a federal complex while leaving sufficient space for period vehicles, background performers and exterior unit work.

Another prominent location was Commerce Court North at 25 King Street West. The historic tower, completed in 1931, was used as a Washington Capitol double. Its monumental entrance, stone façade and early skyscraper design offered a convincing governmental presence, even though the building stands in the middle of Toronto’s financial district.

Toronto is particularly visible when Ed McCusker travels through Washington. During the driving sequence, the route passes the Whitney Block in the Queen’s Park precinct, the Jackman Law Building at the University of Toronto and the west tower of the MaRS Centre. Jackman Law is located at 78 Queen’s Park, close to several other buildings frequently used by productions seeking an American government look.

The series therefore constructs Washington from several Toronto landmarks rather than relying on one easily identifiable building. Their broad avenues, stone façades and institutional scale create a clear visual shift away from rural Scotland.

Valletta and Birgu, Malta

Unlike Toronto, Malta was not used to imitate another country. The production travelled there because the island forms an important part of the investigation’s evidentiary trail.

In Valletta, filming took place at the Grand Master’s Palace on St George’s Square. The palace was used to represent the Auberge de Castille, the historic building that houses the office of Malta’s prime minister. Its ceremonial rooms and courtyards gave the political scenes a genuine Maltese setting, even though one Valletta landmark was standing in for another.

The crew also worked in Birgu, one of Malta’s fortified Three Cities. The Old Armoury, associated with the Knights of the Order of St John, was transformed into the Malta Police Headquarters. Its thick stone walls, vaulted spaces and enclosed courtyards supplied an institutional setting markedly different from the police buildings seen in Scotland and America.

Filming on the island gives this portion of the series its own texture. The Maltese sequences feel warmer, older and more enclosed, visually separating that phase of the inquiry from the grey civic buildings and winter landscapes of Scotland.

The Bombing of Pan Am 103 Cast

Connor Swindells leads the Scottish side of the drama as DS Ed McCusker, a Glasgow police officer who becomes a significant figure in the investigation. Swindells plays him as a capable but initially overwhelmed officer trying to process an event whose scale exceeds anything local policing had previously confronted.

Opposite him, Patrick J. Adams portrays Dick Marquise, the FBI investigator representing the American side of the operation. Their working relationship gives the series one of its central tensions, with two law-enforcement systems attempting to cooperate while bringing different procedures, priorities and political pressures to the case.

Peter Mullan plays DCS John Orr, the senior Strathclyde Police officer who leads the Scottish investigation during its early years, while Tony Curran appears as DCI Harry Bell of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary. James Harkness plays fellow Scottish officer DS Sandy Gay.

The forensic investigation is represented by Eddie Marsan as American explosives specialist Tom Thurman and Nicholas Gleaves as British explosives expert Allen Feraday. Their characters examine fragments recovered from an enormous debris field, gradually reducing a seemingly impossible crime scene to a series of traceable components.

Merritt Wever portrays Kathryn Turman, who begins as a political aide and later works with the FBI to improve institutional support for victims and bereaved families. Douglas Hodge plays investigator Stuart Henderson, while Kevin McKidd appears as DCS Tom McCulloch, who becomes involved during a later stage of the case.

The series also keeps Lockerbie’s residents in view. Phyllis Logan plays Moira Shearer, one of the local women who helped recover, clean and return victims’ personal belongings. Cora Bissett portrays fellow resident Elma Pringle, while Molly Geddes appears as WPC Lauren Aitken.

Lauren Lyle plays June McCusker, Ed’s wife and a former police officer whose perspective reveals the private strain placed upon investigators and their families. Amanda Drew portrays bereaved mother Linda Burman.

The wider ensemble includes Andrew Rothney as Willie Armstrong, Parker Sawyers as Phil Reid, Dominik Tiefenthaler as Edwin Bollier, Adrian Lukis as Roy Burman, Robert Jack as Bob Monetti, Adam Rothenberg as Neil Gallagher and Alastair Mackenzie as Alastair P. Campbell QC. Khalid Laith also appears in the international cast.

Locations Chosen With Restraint

The location strategy behind The Bombing of Pan Am 103 is as much an ethical decision as a production one. The real Lockerbie is reserved for its cemetery, church and civic spaces, places connected to memory rather than recreated destruction. Bathgate carries the physical aftermath. Glasgow and Hamilton provide the investigative machinery, while Toronto and Malta reveal how rapidly the case expanded beyond Scotland.

That division prevents Lockerbie from being treated as a ready-made disaster set. The production visits the town, but it does not attempt to reclaim its streets for spectacle. For a drama built around real victims, real investigators and a community that continues to live with the event, that may be its most important location choice.