Punk legend John Lydon escaped death when he failed to board the fateful PAN AM flight 103, which was blown up over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie.

The SEX-PISTOLS frontman was booked onto the plane with his wife NORA - but just missed take-off because she spent so long packing.

Rotten says, "Nora and I should have been dead. We only missed the flight because Nora hadn't packed in time. We had a big row and then caught the next flight out. The minute we realised what had happened, we just looked at each other and almost collapsed."

Flight 103 from Heathrow to New York fell from the sky over Lockerbie in December 1988 when a Libyan bomb exploded in the hold, resulting in all passengers and crew dying in one of the worst terrorist atrocities in history.

Now John has revealed this haunting memory of his near miss was the reason for his sudden walk-out from reality TV show I'm a celebrity... GET ME OUT OF HERE! - after panicking that his wife's flight to Australia might have ended in similar disaster.

He adds, "From Lockerbie on, when my wife takes a flight I need to know she has arrived safely. So on the programme I was raging because I knew Nora was flying out to Australia - but nobody would tell me whether or not she had arrived. That was the final straw."

25/02/2004 21:05