Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. On Wednesday, 21 December 1988, the aircraft flying this route, a Boeing 747–121 registered N739PA and named “Clipper Maid of the Seas”, was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members. 11 people in Lockerbie, in southern Scotland, were also killed as large sections of the plane fell in the town and destroyed several houses, bringing total fatalities to 270. The event is also known as the Lockerbie bombing. During the Libyan civil war a former government official claimed that Muammar Gaddafi had personally ordered the attack.

The aircraft operating Pan Am Flight 103 was a Boeing 747–121 named Clipper Maid of the Seas. The jumbo jet was the fifteenth 747 built and was delivered in February 1970, one month after the first 747 entered service with Pan Am. The Clipper Maid of the Seas operated the transatlantic leg of Flight 103, which had originated in Frankfurt, West Germany, on a Boeing 727. At London Heathrow, passengers and their luggage on the feeder flight transferred directly onto the Boeing 747, along with interline luggage not accompanied by anyone. The aircraft pushed back from the gate at 18:04, and lifted off at 18:25. Captain James Bruce McQuarrie 55, (is a veteran for leading 11000 flight hours) 1st officer Raymond Ronald Wagner 52 and flight engineer Jerry Don Avritt, 46 flew northwest into the Daventry departure over the Midlands and leveled off at 31,000 ft about 25 miles (40 km) north of Manchester at 18:56.

Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal and largest international air carrier in the United States from 1927 until its collapse on December 4, 1991. Founded in 1927 as a scheduled air mail and passenger service operating between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba, the airline became a major company credited with many innovations that shaped the international airline industry, including the widespread use of jet aircraft, jumbo jets, and computerized reservation systems. It was also a founding member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the global airline industry association. Identified by its blue globe logo, the use of the word "Clipper" in aircraft names and call signs, and the white pilot uniform caps, the airline was a cultural icon of the 20th century. In an era dominated by flag carriers that were wholly or majority government-owned, it was also the unofficial flag carrier of the United States. During most of the jet era, Pan Am's flagship terminal was the Worldport located at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.