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The Kuwait human shields
Oct. 16th, 2006 10:43 amAn old news story that I thought had been put to bed years ago has once again resurfaced, due to a documentary currently being produced by the BBC on the ill-fated flight BA149 into Kuwait in August 1990.
This subject is particularly close to home, as I could very easily have been one of Saddam Hussein's 'human shields' myself if I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was the unfortunate fate that befell a few dozen of my colleagues, and I had been in Kuwait just a few weeks before. The hostage passengers and crew were all held for five months at assorted military installations across Iraq and generally treated like shit (at least one stewardess was raped by Iraqi soldiers), some British kids from that flight were taken to Baghdad where Saddam "entertained" them for the media, and only after Saddam knew his cowardly tactic had lost him the PR war did he release everyone so that they could be with their families for Christmas. The 747 itself was destroyed by Iraqi troops (it is rumoured that BA was able to buy a new 747 from the insurance money they received, something I seriously doubt... also the plane itself had an unfortunate history, being the aircraft used for the suicide of an airport worker in the Caribbean who threw himself into an engine a couple of years earlier, earning the plane the nickname 'the Blender'). Rather laughably, the crews of Iraq Airways flights to the UK were also ordered to go on a PR offensive, telling former hostages they "really must come back some day to visit our beautiful country" – probably the very last thing the hostages would ever want to do.
It's easy and safe to say there is a conspiracy of silence about that flight, simply because there always will be. It centres around liability: if BA publicly admits that flight should not have landed in Kuwait, it can expect huge compensation claims. Crew were very belatedly compensated (probably only after the amount had been earned in interest on company profits, so actually costing the airline nothing), and in 1999 French passengers won £2.5m in damages. Operationally, it is rumoured that the pilots of that flight were contacted by radio from the pilots of another flight that had just left Kuwait to warn them that something bad was happening there; if this is true the captain should have diverted elsewhere. Sometimes you learn big lessons the hard way, and BA is often exemplary at doing just that. Almost certainly there were SAS operatives on board who were to disembark in Kuwait, but unexpectedly their mission turned into one that was to drop them behind enemy lines, and Thatcher's government denied there was pressure to land the flight in Kuwait no matter what the situation. I happen to believe that, as no one in their right mind at MI6 or the Foreign Office would insist on wrecklessly risking the lives of 400 innocent people.
Safety is taken seriously at BA but there are often higher dictates that can compromise things. Much backroom dealing often goes on behind the scenes, other than pure 'market opportunity', that determines where an airline flies to. BA is unfortunately famous for being the last airline to pull out of anywhere when a political situation goes bad, and while the word will always be that safety of passengers and crew are paramount in their operations their actions have often led analysts to different conclusions. Back then, all other European airlines had pulled out of Kuwait months before; similarly today, BA is now the only European airline flying to Zimbabwe, and crew are also being forced to nightstop in Luanda, Angola, another country the Foreign Office does not consider safe for Brits.
As an aside, a good Syrian/American friend who I regularly met up with in Kuwait believes he was the only American to stay in Kuwait for the entire Gulf War. I'd almost given him up for dead but after the Allies rolled in, there he was on ABC television working as an interpreter for journalists at the burning oil fields. He also wrote a very good memoir about his experience called Hiding from Saddam, but has always been reticent about having it published.
This subject is particularly close to home, as I could very easily have been one of Saddam Hussein's 'human shields' myself if I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was the unfortunate fate that befell a few dozen of my colleagues, and I had been in Kuwait just a few weeks before. The hostage passengers and crew were all held for five months at assorted military installations across Iraq and generally treated like shit (at least one stewardess was raped by Iraqi soldiers), some British kids from that flight were taken to Baghdad where Saddam "entertained" them for the media, and only after Saddam knew his cowardly tactic had lost him the PR war did he release everyone so that they could be with their families for Christmas. The 747 itself was destroyed by Iraqi troops (it is rumoured that BA was able to buy a new 747 from the insurance money they received, something I seriously doubt... also the plane itself had an unfortunate history, being the aircraft used for the suicide of an airport worker in the Caribbean who threw himself into an engine a couple of years earlier, earning the plane the nickname 'the Blender'). Rather laughably, the crews of Iraq Airways flights to the UK were also ordered to go on a PR offensive, telling former hostages they "really must come back some day to visit our beautiful country" – probably the very last thing the hostages would ever want to do.
It's easy and safe to say there is a conspiracy of silence about that flight, simply because there always will be. It centres around liability: if BA publicly admits that flight should not have landed in Kuwait, it can expect huge compensation claims. Crew were very belatedly compensated (probably only after the amount had been earned in interest on company profits, so actually costing the airline nothing), and in 1999 French passengers won £2.5m in damages. Operationally, it is rumoured that the pilots of that flight were contacted by radio from the pilots of another flight that had just left Kuwait to warn them that something bad was happening there; if this is true the captain should have diverted elsewhere. Sometimes you learn big lessons the hard way, and BA is often exemplary at doing just that. Almost certainly there were SAS operatives on board who were to disembark in Kuwait, but unexpectedly their mission turned into one that was to drop them behind enemy lines, and Thatcher's government denied there was pressure to land the flight in Kuwait no matter what the situation. I happen to believe that, as no one in their right mind at MI6 or the Foreign Office would insist on wrecklessly risking the lives of 400 innocent people.
Safety is taken seriously at BA but there are often higher dictates that can compromise things. Much backroom dealing often goes on behind the scenes, other than pure 'market opportunity', that determines where an airline flies to. BA is unfortunately famous for being the last airline to pull out of anywhere when a political situation goes bad, and while the word will always be that safety of passengers and crew are paramount in their operations their actions have often led analysts to different conclusions. Back then, all other European airlines had pulled out of Kuwait months before; similarly today, BA is now the only European airline flying to Zimbabwe, and crew are also being forced to nightstop in Luanda, Angola, another country the Foreign Office does not consider safe for Brits.
As an aside, a good Syrian/American friend who I regularly met up with in Kuwait believes he was the only American to stay in Kuwait for the entire Gulf War. I'd almost given him up for dead but after the Allies rolled in, there he was on ABC television working as an interpreter for journalists at the burning oil fields. He also wrote a very good memoir about his experience called Hiding from Saddam, but has always been reticent about having it published.
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