In 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all aboard and people on the ground. The attack became one of the defining aviation terrorism events of the late twentieth century. It led to intensified security measures and long legal and diplomatic consequences.

Lockerbie entered elegy, memorial writing, and public poetry as a tragedy of falling wreckage and interrupted journeys. It changed the emotional meaning of boarding an aircraft, adding fear and political vulnerability to ordinary travel.