Smash hit

Mr Donald Dewar, the Shadow Scottish Secretary, accompanied Mr Rifkind and Sir Hector Monro, Conservative MP for Dumfries, on the flight to the scene.

A 10-man team from the Department of Transport's Air Accidents Investigation Branch arrived within hours of the crash to look for the ``black box'' and cockpit voice recorders and to sift through the wreckage. Experts from the US Federal Aviation Administration and from Pan Am are expected to join them.

But last night one theory, a mid-air collision, suggested in early reports was ruled out by both the RAF and the Civil Aviation Authority and by air traffic controllers who played back tapes of the radar returns and of the conversation between the ground and the flight deck. The only possible causes could therefore have been either a bomb or a major structural failure.

Circumstantial evidence for a bomb was that the aircraft was filled with US Servicemen returning home for Christmas from their postings in Europe.

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But at the same time experts were concerned about the age of the jet, which was the fifteenth produced by Boeing. It was made in 1970 and one of the oldest still flying. If the aircraft had suffered a major fatigue problem either the bulkhead maintaining the pressure inside the jet could have ruptured or a vital part could have split open.

There would have been little the pilot could have done. The passengers would have died almost instantly because of the tremendous in-rush of air as the plane broke up in flight.

The aircraft left Heathrow at 6.25pm, 25 minutes late, for the seven-hour flight to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. There were 240 fare-paying passengers on board, three babies, and 15 crew. Many of the passengers were US citizens returning home for the holiday and the jumbo was said to be ``loaded with Christmas presents''.

The passenger list included an unspecified number of Japanese diplomats and the United Nations Commissioner for Namibia, Mr Bernt Carlsson, a 50-year-old Swede. He had been closely involved in recent efforts to achieve independence for the South African-ruled territory of Namibia.

When it crashed, the 747 was heading north to follow the normal flight path for transatlantic flights, via Glasgow and Stornoway. At 7.19pm, as it flew on the Blue Three airway towards the Atlantic, cruising at 550 mph at 31,000ft, it abruptly disappeared from the radar screens of the Scottish Air Traffic Control Centre at Prestwick. The pilot had last been in radio contact with the ground four minutes earlier and there was no Mayday or distress call, indicating that whatever the catastrophe was, it was sudden.

One witness, Mr John Glasgow, watched in horror as the ``sky lit up'' when the jumbo crashed. He said: ``The whole road was ablaze. Two houses were blazing. The road was completely covered with masonry, garden gates and apparently parts of the plane. There was a lot of smoking debris on fire. It looked as if the road was burning. It looks as if the people in the houses would not have had any chance of getting out.''

Mr Stephen McLeister, a lorry driver from Accrington, said he was driving south past Lockerbie on the A74 when suddenly the cab of his lorry lit up. ``I couldn't believe it. A huge aircraft came over just a few feet above me and hit the ground just in front. I jammed on the brakes and came to a halt. I was very shaken.''

Only days before last night's crash, security forces in a number of European countries, including Britain, were put on alert after warnings from the Palestine Liberation Organization that extremists might launch terrorist attacks to undermine the dialogue between the United States and the PLO.

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