Intel Officer Killed in Explosion Over Lockerbie (21 DEC 1988)

Photo By Erin Thompson | Maj. Charles D. McKee  

UNITED STATES

12.15.2023

Story by Erin Thompson 

U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence

by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian

INTEL OFFICER KILLED IN EXPLOSION OVER LOCKERBIE
On 21 December 1988, an explosion aboard Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed 270 people, including Maj. Charles D. McKee, an Army intelligence officer who served for several years in the Middle East. Major McKee worked with the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) at the time of his death and was killed while returning to Washington, D.C., for a debriefing.

Charles McKee enlisted in the U.S. Army in November 1970 after receiving his bachelor’s degree in law enforcement and corrections. He initially served with the 801st Military Intelligence Detachment, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), at Fort Bragg (known as Fort Liberty since 2023), North Carolina. In 1974, McKee attended Officer Candidate School, graduating a year later with an MI commission, and was attached to the 430th MI Detachment, 66th MI Group, in Germany as the area intelligence bilateral project officer.

In 1979, Major McKee attended the MI Officer Advanced Course and trained as an Arabic linguist at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. He was stationed in the Middle East during the Soviet-Afghan War, the Lebanese Civil War, and other regional conflicts. McKee developed an advanced intelligence reporting system, earning him respect and an unprecedented 29-month tour extension at the recommendation of his duty location commanding general and the U.S. Army Operations Group commander. McKee was later selected for the Foreign Area Officer (FAO) program and earned a master’s degree in national security affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School, specializing in Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian regional issues.

In 1985, Major McKee volunteered and was selected for duty with INSCOM, where he was assigned to the compartmented Special Access Program. He applied eighteen years of expertise on intelligence and unconventional operations to develop policies for regional and military objectives in the Middle East. By late 1988, McKee was serving as INSCOM’s in-country project officer, focusing on the heightened instability and growing terror threats in the Middle East. McKee, known as “Tiny” to his friends and colleagues—he stood six-foot-three and weighed about 260 pounds—and intelligence agents from the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were called back to Washington in late December for a debriefing before the holidays.

On 21 December 1988, Major McKee boarded Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York. Originally scheduled for a different flight, he changed his travel plans to join his colleagues aboard Flight 103. Thirty-eight minutes after takeoff, at 7:03 p.m., a bomb exploded in the plane’s front cargo hold, killing all 259 passengers and crew and causing the aircraft to break apart. Debris fell across a residential neighborhood in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing eleven more people on the ground.

In 2000, a Libyan intelligence officer was sentenced to life in prison in Scotland on 270 counts of murder; a second suspect was acquitted. Three years later, Libya formally admitted responsibility for the bombing, and in December 2022, U.S. authorities arrested another former Libyan intelligence officer for his role in the event. Libya has never provided a motive for the bombing.

Major McKee left a lasting legacy on the military intelligence community. Col. John G. Lackey, McKee’s commanding officer in the Middle East at the time of his death, stated, “[McKee’s] humanness was just as great as his professionalism…Everyone in the unit loved and respected him—he was the complete intelligence soldier professional.” Charles McKee was posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit and was inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame in 2000.


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• Date Taken: 12.15.2023
• Date Posted: 12.15.2023 15:33
• Story ID: 460137
• Location: US