The National Geographic channel has admitted that it made mistakes in a controversial television documentary on the Lockerbie disaster.

Air Crash Investigation: Lockerbie, which used computers to recreate the impact on the Scottish town, stated in its opening line that two years prior to the bombing, the sabotage of Air India flight 182 had happened off the coast of Scotland.

However, the channel now has to "rectify" the narration to explain the Air India explosion was off the south coast of Ireland, three-and-a-half years before the bombing over Lockerbie of Pan Am 103 - which caused 270 deaths on December 21, 1988.

Just days before the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, National Geographic apologised for the mistakes and said they would be rectified.

The programme, screened earlier this month, showed the "Clipper, Maid of the Seas" breaking up in the air before exploding in a fireball on the town's Sherwood Crescent.

The programme has already upset several relatives of the victims - two of whom made official complaints to the broadcaster. The air crash investigation programme is part of the seventh series, and the broadcaster said it is one of its most popular.

A spokeswoman for National Geographic said: "There was an error in the narration and it is now being rectified.

"We have apologised for that. The correction will be made to all future broadcasts of the show. We try to handle the series as sensitively as possible."

The news came on the day that Father Patrick Keegans, the priest in Lockerbie at the time, led the parliamentary reflection in Holyrood.

Father Keegans, who was living in Sherwood Crescent at the time and whose own home was partially destroyed, talked yesterday about the strength and compassion of the people of Lockerbie in helping all the families through the "darkness" of grief and into the light.

"That light came from the people of Lockerbie," he said. "It was the light of genuine love, care and concern for all who were suffering.

"The people of Lockerbie, shocked to the core, looked not to themselves but to others. They are a shining jewel in the crown of Scotland.

"Approaching the 20th anniversary of the Lockerbie air disaster, our thoughts and our prayers turn to those who died."

Father Keegans, who will fly to the US today to lead the commemoration at Arlington cemetery for those from the other side of the Atlantic killed, last week helped launch a campaign to free the man convicted of the bombing.

The priest, now based in Ayr, publicly called for the compassionate release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, who is serving a life sentence in Greenock. The Justice For Megrahi Campaign wants the Libyan, who has been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, released.