Several events will be held on campus this week to remember the 35 SU students killed in the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 attack.
This week, the Syracuse University community will participate in Remembrance Week. Many students have probably noticed the renovations on the Remembrance Wall in front of Hall of Languages have been completed.
But, what exactly is Remembrance Week?
On Dec. 21, 1988, 35 SU students returning home from study abroad programs were killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. The plane held 270 passengers. The university started Remembrance Week to honor those students that died.
For those involved in this year’s Remembrance Week honoring the 35 Syracuse University students killed on Pan Am Flight 103, the death of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi means a few different things.
For the scholars, his death highlights a need for more discussion about how to prosecute convicted terrorists and the governments who support them. For some families of Pan Am 103 victims, scholars said, Gadhafi’s death has helped to bring a sense of closure and justice served.
A Remembrance Scholar gets to know the Pan Am Flight 103 victim she represents.
When I became a Remembrance Scholar, I anticipated spending a lot of time in university archives learning about an exceptional, far away person who died too soon. I imagined talking about the Pan Am 103 tragedy with current scholars, and readied myself for many a weepy phone call home to my mom.
All of that came true. But what I didn’t realize before this process began was the connection I would make with the families of the victims of Pan Am 103, the message they would have for us, and how close I would feel to the tragedy, despite the distance.
Syracuse University remembers the 35 students lost in the Pan Am Flight 103 tragedy with scholarships and memorial events.
On the evening of Dec. 21, 1988, a bomb detonated in the luggage compartment of Pan Am Flight 103, bound from London to New York. The jumbo jet crashed into the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, including 35 Syracuse University students returning from a semester of study abroad.