What happened to Steven Flannigan from The Bombing of Pan Am 103?

One of those whose story is told in the series is Steven Flannigan, a young boy whose parents and sister were all killed while he was out of the house running an errand.

His emotional story is affectingly told throughout the six episodes, as he tries to rebuild his life following the tragedy which left him orphaned and homeless. Steven's real-life story beyond the series' events was also tragic, as he sadly died at the age of 26.

Read on for everything you need to know about the real life of Steven Flannigan, as portrayed by Archie McCormick in The Bombing of Pan Am 103.

What happened to Steven Flannigan, as seen in The Bombing of Pan Am 103.

Steven Flannigan was a 14-year-old resident of Lockerbie when the bombing of Pan Am 103 occurred. That night he had taken his sister's Christmas present, a new bicycle, to a neighbour to be checked over.

When he returned parts of the wreckage of the plane had fallen on his home, killing his parents Tom and Kathleen Flannigan, as well as his 10-year-old sister, Joanne. They were three of the 270 victims of the attack that night.

He did have one close surviving relative, his 19-year-old brother David. David had been living with a friend in Blackpool for a few weeks at that time.

In the series Steven is seen becoming friends with DS Ed McCusker. It is unclear whether this friendship was real, or whether he actually was closer to another officer, Alex Smith, whose story was merged with that of McCusker.

As Steven and David attempted to rebuild their lives following the tragedy, they were awarded around £2.1 million in compensation, which Steven invested, but David spent as quickly as he could, calling it "dirty money".

David died from heart failure at the age of 24 five years after the Lockerbie bombing, in 1993. He had lived a life filled with drugs and drink, and died in a hostel in Thailand.

A few months after his brother's death, Steven started an affair with his foster mother, and his her husband found out, he fled Lockerbie and, in a surprise decision, trained to become a jumbo jet pilot in Florida.

He returned to Glasgow with a new friend, John Boyce, and in 1996 fell in love with a woman named Lisa Gregory who he met on a visit back to Lockerbie. When she became pregnant he moved back to live with her in Lockerbie.

However, the relationship disintegrated before their son Luke was born in 1997, and Steven travelled to Bradford on Avon, where he moved in with Boyce and his wife.

In 1999, Boyce and his wife moved to Heywood to start a guesthouse, and Steven became a partner in the business and moved in with them again.

In 2000, Steven showed some of the guesthouse visitors the local pub, before heading back using an unsigned route. Under what circumstances remains uncertain, but at some point he fell across the nearby train lines, and was hit by a slow-moving train in the early hours of the morning.

The momentum of the train was so slow that he survived for two more days in hospital, although he never regained consciousness, and died at the age of 26.

As of 2018, his son Luke was aged 21, and was the sole beneficiary of a Steven's compensation, which had been placed in a trust fund. He was said to live on a remote sheep farm on the outskirts of Lockerbie.

The Bombing of Pan Am 103 premieres on BBC One and iPlayer on Sunday 18th May, with new episodes premiering at 9pm every Sunday and Monday for three weeks.

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