'I saw John's briefcase in the plane's debris… it was the start of my nightmare'

It was just days before Christmas when Victoria Cummock heard that a plane had crashed on a quiet town in Scotland.

Heartbroken for relatives of the victims, she and her family said a quiet prayer as harrowing accounts of the tragedy flooded the airwaves.

But viewing grim footage of the scene, a briefcase in the debris caught her eye, leading to the horrifying realisation her husband, John, was among those killed.

It later turned out the 38-year-old had changed his plans so he could travel home early to Miami, Florida, for Christmas to surprise his family.

Mrs Cummock’s story is one of many told in a new four-part Sky documentary that revisits the terrorist attack which led to 270 deaths when Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire.

As the 35th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing approaches, the series examines Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity, from the local residents who lived through the carnage and the families of those who died, to the FBI and CIA agents who investigated the crime and brought one man to justice.

Mrs Cummock said: ‘In the media everything was about the wreckage. It was all debris and there were bodies covered by orange tarps and in the foreground was a brown attaché case. I had given John that case on August 24 of that year. So that solidified to me that he really was on board. That was the beginning of my nightmare.’

It was just after 7pm on December 21, 1988, when the aircraft fell from the sky half an hour after leaving Heathrow, bound for New York. A total of 243 passengers and 16 crew were on board when a Semtex bomb hidden in a suitcase detonated at 31,000ft.

By 7.03pm, a deadly combination of mangled fuselage and burning fuel had rained down on Lockerbie, with the ensuing fireball incinerating homes in the town’s Sherwood Crescent and, with it, 11 residents.

The bodies of the passengers on board the doomed flight as well as their belongings were scattered on local streets, gardens and the ­surrounding countryside.

Mrs Cummock heard the news on the radio at home in Florida – hours after speaking to her husband. She said: ‘The radio reported a flight had disappeared from radar, Pan Am 103, and I said to my mother, “Oh that’s the flight John’s going to come home on tomorrow” and I said, “Those families, they are never going to be the same again”.

‘And so everybody bowed their head and we just had a moment of silence and a bit of a prayer. I didn’t realise I was really praying for myself and never imagined this was something I would be part of.’

In heartbreaking testimony, Mrs Cummock tells how she desperately called a helpline for families, but they were unable to offer her any information or answers. She added: ‘John was in London on business and we would talk every day.

‘He had called me first thing on December 21, we had talked about Christmas and the kids waiting for Santa and daddy coming home and it was also when we were going to be celebrating our youngest daughter’s third birthday.

‘He didn’t mention he was going to change his plans to come home early and surprise us.’ Mrs ­Cummock said the tragedy had a huge impact on her children.

‘They were petrified there was a bad guy out there that had murdered their dad and was going to come and murder us,’ she said.

‘To watch your children being re-traumatised the more they hear, the older they get and what things really mean has been devastating.’

It took until May 2000 for alleged Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to stand trial at a specially convened court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands.

After 84 days and evidence from 230 witnesses, the judges found Megrahi guilty of the murders.

In 2009, he was released from prison in Scotland on compassionate grounds by the then Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. He died in Libya in 2012, aged 60. Mrs ­Cummock said: ‘That was such a short sentence. We were horrified that this was supposed to bring justice to our loved ones.’

The documentary also explores claims Megrahi was innocent, as well as the arrest last December in the US of suspected bomb maker Abu Agila Mohammad Masud.

Lockerbie launches on Saturday on Sky Documentaries and NOW TV.