A new documentary from Sky explores the shocking ordeal that the passengers and crew of British Airways Flight 149 endured after they inadvertently became involved in the Gulf War.
Flight 149: Hostage of War, which has been released by Sky Documentaries, tells the story of how the 367 people on the plane were taken hostage and seriously mistreated and sexually assaulted by the Iraqi forces who had recently invaded Kuwait and kickstarted the Gulf War in August 1990.
A synopsis for the documentary reads: “On August 2, 1990, just after Saddam’s forces storm Kuwait, a civilian flight unwittingly touches down in the middle of the war zone. The passengers and crew find themselves trapped, held as hostages by Saddam Hussein, becoming pawns in a rapidly escalating international crisis that will reshape the Middle East.
"For over three decades, the British government denied any prior knowledge of the invasion before the plane's ill-fated landing. Now, new information has come to light to challenge the official narrative and the surviving hostages are taking the British government and BA to court to seek justice and the truth."
The new documentary will provide fresh insight into the appalling incident with some of the hostages, Kuwaiti freedom fighters, political insiders and journalist Stephen Davis providing their thoughts on how the events unfolded.
What happened to BA Flight 149?
British Airways Flight 149 was a scheduled Boeing 747 service from London’s Heathrow airport to Subang International Airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was scheduled for a routine stopover in Kuwait to refuelling. The stopover should have only lasted 60 minutes.
The flight, which had departed London on 2 August 1990, unknowingly landed at Kuwait International Airport just hours after Saddam Hussein had ordered the Iraqi army to invade of its neighbour.
The passengers departed the plane to find themselves in a deserted airport with almost no staff on the ground and all other flights either cancelled or redirected. Those ending their journey in Kuwait reportedly proceeded to immigration, but discovered that their luggage had not been unloaded.
Those who were due to continue to Malaysia returned to the aircraft in anticipation of their next stop in Madras, India. However, during their preparations for take off, Iraqi jets reportedly bombed the runway and took out the control tower. At this point, the cabin crew decided to evacuate the plane and everyone on board was moved back to the terminal.
The passengers were quickly captured by the Iraqi forces who had already taken over Kuwait City, the capital of the country. Many of the detainees were initially held in airport hotels and later moved to more remote, less sanitary locations in Kuwait and Iraq.
Many of the hostages claimed they witnessed numerous atrocities committed against the Kuwaiti people while they were under the control of the Iraqi forces. Some of the hostages themselves were subjected to mental and physical abuse. After the cabin services director, Clive Earthy, complained to the lead officer about the incident, the soldier who perpetrated the rape was reportedly executed.
Some of the group, including the plane’s captain Richard Brunyate, did manage to escape and were sheltered by Kuwaiti resistance fighters. Brunyate later explained that he feared he would be targeted by the Iraqi authorities due to his father, who had worked in Iraq, being considered a personal enemy of Hussein’s.
Some women and children were released by the end of August 1990. Former PM Edward Heath personally negotiated with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad to secure the release of the remaining hostages, who finally returned home in December 1990. Only one of the hostages, a Kuwait citizen, died during the tribulation.
As for the plane, it remained on the tarmac and was eventually destroyed in the latter stages of the conflict. It is unclear whether the US military destroyed the plane to stop Iraq from using it or whether Iraqi forces blew it up upon their withdrawal from Kuwait. As a result of the destruction BA was able to claim insurance and two of the aircraft's landing gears are now on display at the airline's headquarters at Heathrow.
Reaction and investigation
At the time the British Government said responsibility for what happened “lies entirely” with the Iraqi authorities at the time, while British Airways has said it was “not warned about the invasion”. However, BA’s chairman Lord King blamed the incident on the Foreign Office claiming that if Kuwait had been designated a warzone then the flight would never have landed there. In addition, BA's area manager for Kuwait and Iraq, Lawrence O'Toole, later claimed that he did contact the British embassy in Kuwait to ask if it was safe to continue flights and was informed that a full-scale invasion was unlikely.
A 2007 documentary called Last Flight to Kuwait, which was commissioned by the BBC, claimed that both the UK and US governments had been informed that Iraq had invaded Kuwait at least an hour before the flight landed.
Documents released in November 2021 showed the Foreign Office was told by the British ambassador in Kuwait that Iraqi forces had crossed the border an hour before the flight landed. The information was never passed to British Airways, which was unable to take action to divert the flight, according to the Foreign Office files released to the National Archives. The then foreign secretary Liz Truss admitted that the government had misled BA by not passing on a warning to the airline.
In July 2024, it was reported that the passengers and crew who were taken hostage were preparing to take legal action against the government.
Flight 149: Hostage of War is now available to stream on Sky and NOW TV.
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