Featured Map for 21 December 2018:
Longest Night and Lockerbie Memorial

Tonight is the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere, with the winter solstice occurring at 22:23 GMT. (In the southern hemisphere it's the summer solstice and the longest day of the year.)

30 years ago was the start of a longest night of a different sort: the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Flying from London Heathrow to New York's JFK, the Boeing 747-121 (N739PA Clipper Maid of the Seas) had departed London on schedule at 6:00 pm and was level at FL310 when an improvised explosive device in a suitcase exploded near the left side of the foreword cargo hold at approximately 7:02:50 pm. The explosion and subsequent crash killed 270 people, including all 259 aboard the aircraft (three New York-based flight crew, 13 London-based cabin crew, and 243 passengers), plus 11 residents of Lockerbie. (Additional details can be found in the references below.)

Today's Featured Map shows the route of Pan Am 103, including an intra-European tag from Frankfurt operated with a Boeing 727, and a planned onward tag to Detroit.

References and additional information:

• Everything you need to know: December solstice – EarthSky (15 December 2018)
• Report on the accident to Boeing 747-121, N739PA at Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, Scotland on 21 December 1988 – Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) (10 December 2014)
• Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie Air Disaster Archives – Syracuse University
• Pan Am Flight 103 Memorial – Arlington National Cemetery
• Pan Am Museum Foundation's 30th Anniversary Flight 103 Memorial Gathering – Pan Am Museum Foundation
• Services mark Lockerbie bombing 30th anniversary – BBC (21 December 2018)
• N739PA Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) Boeing 747-121 – Planespotters.net