British Airways flight 149 was headed for Kuala Lumpur when it stopped in Kuwait at 01:13 (GMT) on August 2, 1990. It had left London late and, on landing, dropped off a few passengers who found the terminal empty, all other arrivals and departures having been canceled. At the Kuwaiti British Embassy, the MI6 officer had hours earlier called his London contact to advise them that the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein had begun and that no UK planes should land.
Iraq owed Kuwait a lot of money that they couldn’t pay. Saddam
wanted the oil reserves to double his own supply. For some reason, the message that should have warned them of the sudden invasion never reached the plane. The runway was bombed and the plane was eventually torched, making escape in that vessel impossible. Now, all these years later, the passengers from the plane are suing the UK and the airline. They believe that the UK government deliberately let the plane land because part of the group who first exited there were
soldiers or military advisors who were there to track the progress of the war or to look out for Saudi interests during the conflict.
The airlines and UK government deny any such people were on board. Passenger witnesses say otherwise. While being detained by the Iraqis, the passengers, a mix of nationalities, were at first treated well. They stayed at hotels and assumed they would be sent home
quickly. Soon they were separated and sent to rural locations of military or industrial value, places that were likely to be bombed during a war, but this became unlikely if the passengers were staying there.
The passengers’ treatment continued to worsen. They saw atrocities being committed by the invaders on the Kuwaiti population as well as undergoing bad treatment and harsh conditions themselves. Saddam had photo ops where he used the children from the plane as props to show how wonderful he was. It was pretty cringy stuff. Most of the women and children were sent home within the month, and the men were held much longer.
This film, directed by Jenny Ash and narrated mainly by the surviving passengers, is valuable because it’s easy to forget such happenings from the past. The more accurately we can remember the past, the better off we’ll be. Although the children weren’t held that long, the impact of their captivity survives to this day. They want
some accountability.