Latest news with #Flight149:HostageofWar
Otago Daily Times
6 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Heading to Texas in trying times
Is it all right to visit the United States right now? Writer and editor Stephen Davis investigates. I have always loved travelling to the United States. As The Sunday Times correspondent in Los Angeles in the late 1980s, I visited 48 of the 50 states, missing only North and South Dakota. One of my favourite places was Austin, the capital of Texas, a charming university town with its memorable motto "Keep It Weird". So when I was invited to the premiere of my documentary film Flight 149: Hostage of War at the huge SXSW (south by southwest) festival in Austin, I did not hesitate. I found myself, after a 14-hour flight from Auckland to Houston, on the road in a rented car on the two and a-half-hour drive to Austin, a flat, featureless landscape memorable only for the number of speeding giant trucks that passed me as I kept to the speed limit, and ominous roadside billboards advertising the services of lawyers if you ended up in a crash. On my way I kept thinking — "should I be here?" I have always been hesitant to visit a number of places on my bucket list for moral reasons — Iran while they beat and murder women for how they dress, or Turkey while they bomb the Kurds. But the US is — still —a democracy, right? You cannot blame an entire country for Maga (political movement based on Donald Trump saying Make America Great Again) and Trump, or punish all the good liberal Americans who did not vote for him. But as I drove I heard the news of his attacks on universities and random arrests of people exercising their right to protest and my uneasiness grew. Austin is named after Stephen Austin, known as the Father of Texas and for his motto: "The journey is always hard. Don't give up." Like Texas itself, the myth is as important as the man, but we do know that he was an entrepreneur who led the colonisation of the region by bringing 300 families and their slaves from the United States to what was then the Tejas region of Mexico in 1825. The city that he gave his name to was unrecognisable from my previous visits — bigger, with more traffic and a different vibe. Austin has always been a liberal, democratic enclave in a very red state and locals complain that its nature is changing thanks to enormous influx of tech jobs and money turning it into the Silicon Valley of Texas. Elon Musk has built a factory that has brought thousands of jobs to the area — Apple is investing billions too. ( It is fair to say that the Uber divers, merchants and other small business people love the jobs and don't care about the politics.) It was depressing to walk around the downtown area and discover there was nowhere to buy a newspaper or magazine and that it was half an hour's walk in the hot sun to the nearest bookshop. Potholes on most of the roads were evidence of a crumbling infrastructure. But despite all this, Austin remains a charming destination. The bars are cool, the music is everywhere, and the food is terrific. Do visit the grand state capital building and look at the huge Confederate statue and its sinister re-writing of history: "Died for state's rights guaranteed under the Constitution. The people of the South, animated by the spirit of 1776, to preserve their rights, withdrew from the federal compact in North resorted to coercion. The South, against overwhelming numbers and resources, fought until exhausted." A short distance away is an example of the "rights" they were taking about — the right to keep slaves. There is a beautiful sculpture dedicated to emancipation. That, and the signs dedicated to Mexican heritage and history, are reason to hope. Recommendations Joe's Bakery and Coffee shop, 2305 E 7th St It's been around since 1935 and it's the best place for breakfast, TexMex style, such as scrambled eggs with beans and tortillas, or jalapenos if you want some early morning spice. Don't expect Dunedin cafe quality coffee though. Austin, like the rest of the United States, has a baffling addiction to average coffee. Franklin Barbecue, 900 E 11st A long-time Austin favourite described by the Texas Monthly as "serving the best barbecue in the known universe". It is everything you might dream about as a meat lover but be aware it doesn't take reservations, so prepare to queue, day or night. Books If you get away from the downtown area you will find a couple of gems for book lovers. Half Price Books ( several branches) are cavernous outlets full of discounted hardbacks, paperbacks and magazines. Barnes and Noble, 10000 Research Boulevard, is everything a book shop should be. It's off the beaten track but well worth a visit, a lovely, relaxed place with a great selection and knowledgeable staff in a fine building. Tacos Good cheap tacos are everywhere, in food trucks and funky restaurants. Try the $US5 ($NZ8.75) beef tacos at Velvet Tacos, 522 Congress Ave. It's fiercely competitive but there is still that American spirit of community — during the Great Texas Freeze of 2021 that left tens of thousands stranded in the cold and without basic necessities, four Taco joint owners — who became known as the Taco Mafia — joined forces to feed the city. Ginas on Congress, 314 Congress Avenue An upscale steak house in the heart of town, with friendly staff and a giant photo of Italian actress/model/bombshell Gina Lollobrigida on the wall. The owner is a big Italian movie fan — his other restaurant is called Sophia, as in Loren. I had the best Wagyu steak I have eaten outside of Japan, definitely not cheap at $US42 ($NZ73) but so good that I seriously resented requests from my film colleagues to give them a taste. Ice cream If you pass a branch of Lick (Honest Ice Cream), go inside and order a large portion of the Texas sheet cake. I have a sweet tooth and this chocolate confection is one of the best desserts I have ever tasted. Chi'lantro A chain with three branches in the city featuring — new to me but obviously wildly popular — Korean- Tex Mex fusion. For $US15 ($NZ26) you get a huge bowl of delicious food — mixing things like Korean barbecue chicken with Tortillas, black beans and corn or their take on B'Bimbap. It was all good. It's one of those very American immigrant success stories "If you're an immigrant, grew up with a single mom who had to support two kids, you're not getting good grades in school, if you have a sibling that was disabled, if you lost your dad to cancer, that's me," founder Jae Kim says in an online video. "Not a lot of people know [the struggle] who are born here. Like, going through the immigration process of getting a green card and like you're thinking like, 'Do I belong here?"' He started a food truck business by maxing out his credit cards and taking out his total savings of $30,000 to pursue his dream and he succeeded. But I couldn't help thinking how future Kims would fare in Maga world, even assuming Trump allows struggling people to get into the country.
Irish Independent
12-06-2025
- Irish Independent
‘Flight 149: Hostage of War': The staggering story of 400 people taken hostage by Saddam Hussein's forces –and the cover up that followed
Governments lie all the time. At the centre of staggering documentary Flight 149: Hostage of War (Sky Documentaries, available on demand) is a massive lie compounded by a cover-up: that the 400 passengers and crew of British Airways Flight 149, who were taken hostage by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces 35 years ago, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
What happened to Flight 149? True story behind Sky documentary explained
Sky Documentaries delves into an extraordinary chapter from the Gulf War that is as fascinating as it is horrifying in Flight 149: Hostage of War. The 367 passengers and crew of British Airways flight 149 were taken hostage after the plane landed at Kuwait International Airport on 2 August 1990, shortly after Iraq launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour, prompting the start of the Gulf War. Some hostages were mistreated, seriously sexually assaulted and kept in near-starvation conditions. Until recently, many accounts connected to the BA flight in August 1990 – particularly about when the government had known the invasion was under way and around claims that it had let it go ahead for intelligence gathering purposes – had been officially denied. The new documentary examines the accounts of passengers and crew, among others, about what happened that day. A synopsis from Sky says: "On August 2, 1990, just after Saddam's forces storm Kuwait, a civilian flight unwittingly touches down in the middle of the warzone. 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." Viewers will see some of the surviving hostages, Kuwaiti resistance fighters, investigative journalist Stephen Davis, and political insiders give their view on the events that unfolded. But what happened to BA Flight 149? BA flight 149 took off from Heathrow on 1 August 1990 after hours of delays with 385 people on board (including 18 crew). They were bound for Subang International Airport, which at the time was the main travel hub for Kuala Lumpur. On its journey to Malaysia, the flight was scheduled for a refuelling stop in Kuwait and another in Madras. But Iraq had launched an invasion of Kuwait in the early hours of 2 August and the plane never reached Subang as Hussein's forces had taken control of Kuwait International airport. Some of the passengers had been due to finish their journey in Kuwait and left the plane, while those expecting to continue on were told that the airport had been closed for two hours. But when Iraqi forces reportedly bombed the runway and took out the control tower, the remaining people on board were evacuated from the plane, but then captured by the army and taken as hostages. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Farm (@ The empty Flight 149 was later blown up on the runway, but it isn't clear who was responsible for destroying it – the US military may have been trying to prevent Iraq from using it. Although the hostages were kept in the same hotel to begin with, they were later split up into smaller groups and held in different locations in Kuwait and Iraq. Their horrific ordeal included mental and physical abuse, rape and witnessing Kuwaiti civilians and soldiers killed by the army. The plane's pilot Captain Richard Brunyate managed to escape with the Kuwaiti resistance, later explaining that his father was considered an enemy by Hussein and he worried what would happen to him if his name was recognised. Some other small numbers of passengers and crew also managed to escape with the resistance at various points. One of the hostages died in captivity, and the others either escaped or were released in the weeks and months after their capture. Women and children were given the chance to be released in late August, but the hostages left behind were used by the Iraqi army as human shields whilst moving between locations. The last remaining hostages were released in December 1990. British Airways immediately complained that they had been allowed to fly into Kuwait after the invasion had begun, arguing that it should have been designated as a war zone by the Foreign Office to redirect the stopover. Then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher claimed that the flight had arrived into Kuwait hours before the invasion, but many of the passengers and crew reported hearing gunfire, tanks and loud bangs when they landed in Kuwait City. The airline has awarded damages to some of the groups of passengers who took court action against them. However, despite the British government denying trying to influence BA in any way to fly into Kuwait, BA have repeatedly made statements that they were told by the government that it was safe to fly there. A 2007 documentary revealed that other flights had been diverted away from Kuwait during the journey and that news of the invasion could have been passed on to Flight 149 at least an hour before it landed for refuelling. The documentary also included claims from an anonymous former SAS soldier who claimed that he and his team had been put on board the flight for intelligence gathering on the invasion. In 2021, then foreign secretary Liz Truss admitted that the government at the time had misled BA by not passing on a warning to the airline. A group of passengers are now suing the government and the airline over the claims that the flight was allowed to land in Kuwait as part of an SAS mission, with the new Sky documentary telling their story. The documentary airs on Sky Documentaries on Wednesday, 11 June at 9pm and is then repeated over the following week. It can also be streamed on Sky and NOW.
Glasgow Times
11-06-2025
- Glasgow Times
Scot held hostage by Saddam Hussein hopes for justice
Charlie Kristiansson, an air steward from Uddingston, Lanarkshire, was among 385 passengers and crew on BA Flight 149 when it landed in Kuwait to refuel on August 2, 1990—despite British authorities having already been informed that Iraqi forces had launched an invasion. The terrified hostages, including 11 children, were rounded up and used by Saddam's regime as 'human shields' at military sites. Many were starved, beaten, and sexually assaulted by their captors, reports the Daily Record. READ MORE: Thug knocked out three of teen's teeth with one punch Kristiansson and others are now part of a class legal action accusing the UK Government and British Airways of knowingly endangering them. The lawsuit alleges that Flight 149 was being used to covertly deliver a British intelligence team into the region under the cover of a civilian flight. Charlie hopes the new Sky documentary Flight 149: Hostage of War will increase pressure on authorities to come clean after what he calls a 35-year-long 'cover-up.' He said to the Daily Record: "The documentary is just another step in our harrowing journey. That flight was a Trojan horse. I want the Government and BA dragged into the courts and forced to tell the truth. 'The suffering was unbearable, and it was all avoidable. We were betrayed by the Government and I will never forgive them. I am furious.' Charlie was 28 at the time, working aboard the London-to-Malaysia flight, tending to passengers as the plane prepared to depart after its stopover, when Iraqi jets began bombing Kuwait International Airport. Explosions shredded the runway, and the crew rushed to evacuate passengers onto buses driven by fleeing Kuwaiti ground staff. The Iraqi military soon rounded up the foreigners and took them to Kuwait City's Regency Palace Hotel, claiming they were to be 'guests of Iraq.' On the way, Charlie saw the devastation of war—bodies abandoned among the rubble and twisted wreckage. READ MORE: Woman jailed in UK's first monkey torture case Initially, the hostages believed the British Government and BA would intervene. Charlie recalled: 'They offered us no help at all. 'We soon realised we were on our own.' He and a group of other male crew members and stewardesses were taken to a derelict bungalow at Shuwaikh Port, which was covered in excrement and infested with flies. They were terrorised by soldiers who warned them they'd be shot if they tried to escape. Charlie, who is 6ft 5in, saw his weight fall to just 6.5 stones. In November, Charlie was taken from the group and moved to a missile base near Baghdad, where he was held alongside six Scottish air force pilots who were regularly tortured. There, a kind Iraqi doctor convinced the guards to let Charlie go to a hospital, where he was finally able to phone his mother back in Scotland. He said: 'It was like she was in the world of the living and I was trapped in hell with the dead. 'I felt I would never see her again.' After five months in captivity, the hostages were released in December 1990. Charlie left British Airways after 13 years, disillusioned by what he describes as mounting evidence of the authorities' disregard for the lives on board Flight 149. He now lives in Luxembourg, teaching English. Despite the trauma, he continues to campaign for the truth. It was revealed in 2021 that the Foreign Office had been warned of Saddam's invasion more than an hour before Flight 149 landed at 4.13am Kuwaiti time. However, the Government denied that BA had been alerted, or that any intelligence team was aboard. READ MORE: Glasgow teacher struck off after pupils discover her explicit OnlyFans account In the documentary, Tony Paice, then-head of MI6 in Kuwait, claims he directly warned a senior British Airways official not to let the flight land. Multiple passengers also recall seeing a mysterious group of 10 men board the flight—believed to be covert operatives—though their presence has never been officially acknowledged. British Airways continues to state it received no warning. Flight 149: Hostage of War airs on Sky Documentaries from Wednesday, June 11.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Flight 149' Director Hopes Evidence Uncovered During Filming Will Help Hostages Win Legal Case Against UK Government & British Airways
EXCLUSIVE: The director of Sky's Flight 149: Hostage of War about one of the darkest events of the Gulf War hopes the doc will help a group of former hostages win their legal case against the UK government and British Airways. Emmy-nominee Jenny Ash said her team uncovered evidence during the research phase that she had wanted to use in the feature doc but was dissuaded from doing so by lawyers for the hostages, who said they wanted to save it for the upcoming trial. More from Deadline Trailers For 'The Traitors India' & 'Flight 149' Doc; Disney+ Readies Sunghoo Park Anime - Global Briefs First Pics Land Of Tom Hollander & Niamh Algar In Sky's 'The Iris Affair'; 'White Man Walking' To Storyville; BBC Adapting 'Crookhaven'; Adam Curtis Unveils Next Project; 'Patience' Season 2 - Global Briefs 'Britannia' Theft Lawsuit Thrown Out Of Court; Producer Laments Wasted Time & Money Flight 149, which launches June 11, recounts one of the most extraordinary – and until recently, officially denied – chapters of the Gulf War. Just after Saddam Hussein's forces had stormed Kuwait in 1990, a British Airways flight from London to Malaysia touched down in Kuwait and the passengers and crew were held as hostages by Hussein for weeks as they became pawns in an international crisis. Hostages alleged they were subject to rape, mental abuse, mock executions and living in unsanitary conditions with little food. An image of one of the youngest hostages, Stuart Lockwood, having his hair stroked by Hussein is etched in many people's memory. For three decades the UK government denied the public had been misled over Flight 149 until November 2021 when they finally admitted the Foreign Office were warned before the flight about the Kuwaiti invasion. The government, however, refuses to acknowledge that the flight was being used for a secret intelligence mission. Passengers and crew last year sued the government and British Airways for 'deliberately endangering them' and a recent Financial Times article revealed that British Airways denies the charges and is preparing to fight the lawsuit, with the airline's legal team describing the claims as an 'abuse of process'. 'This whole chapter of the Gulf War has been shrouded in secrecy,' Ash told Deadline. 'This is something the government denied for 30 years until they had no choice. I really hope this film will help [the hostages] win the case and bring them the justice they deserve. They deserve compensation but more than anything they just want to be told the truth and get an apology from both the government and British Airways.' Ash's team worked closely with the hostages' lawyers and in some instances were told to hold newly-uncovered evidence back for the upcoming trial. 'There was a bit of give and take,' she added. An unlikely inspiration It was an unlikely figure that first got Ash thinking about Flight 149. Virgin boss Richard Branson was involved with helping a charter plane rescue some of the hostages and Ash met Branson more than three decades on while working on a branded content project. 'We were making conversation during a coffee break and I asked him what he was most proud of in his career, expecting him to talk about a rocket going into space or some such, but instead he talked about this rescue flight going into Baghdad,' Ash explained. 'I vaguely remembered Stuart Lockwood having his hair stroked by Saddam but I'd totally forgotten about that chapter of history. That got me talking to hostages about how they felt they had been gaslit for years.' The idea percolated with Ash for some time and at one point she was developing a factual drama about the tragedy with Mr Bates vs the Post Office network ITV. But the project was given fresh impetus following the British government's 2021 apology and it was eventually commissioned as a straight documentary feature by Sky, before premiering at the recent SXSW. 'Having that present tense narrative was really useful and made us feel it was the perfect time to tell a story of a miscarriage of justice,' she added. 'It felt like the post office [scandal]. People have been silenced and gaslit.' Ash and her team took a three-pronged approach to Flight 149: telling the stories of the hostages, charting the 'political cat and mouse game that played out on the world stage which feels resonant today,' and covering the 'quite complicated legal case' that rumbles on as Deadline goes to press. For the third prong, Ash, who was Emmy nominated for 2010's America: The Story of the US and has made docs on Osama bin Laden and the Nuremberg trials, wanted to imbue a sense of drama by constructing a stylized legal office and then having the lawyers – a small firm called McCue Jury & Partners that has previously taken on Vladimir Putin and Andrew Tate – interview the hostages. She worked with Sex Education cinematographer Jamie Cairney to bring this sense of drama and help tease out experiences that were almost 'metaphysical' for the hostages. One, for example, discusses how 'the sand became a character in his head.' 'In this genre it's important to do drama in a literal way, it's got to be fragments of memory,' added Ash. 'A lot of the hostages' experiences were really nightmareish and we wanted to get inside their heads.' On researching the 'political cat and mouse game' that was the Gulf War, Ash spent time in Kuwait 'visiting dusty garages, talking to people and finding all this footage from the Kuwaiti resistance.' Her cause was helped by a production team including Mark Henderson, who himself was kidnapped two decades ago in South America, and Syrian producer Mowaffaq Safadi who introduced 'the Middle Eastern side of the story' and a Kuwaiti perspective. 'I didn't just want a Western perspective,' added Ash. 'People didn't realize what a deep betrayal it was when Iraq invaded Kuwait because the two were like brothers. People have traditionally seen Kuwait as this very rich people who were victims in this invasion and the truth is there was this incredible Kuwaiti resistance and amazing stories.' Flight 149 is produced by Drum Studios in association with Sky Studios. Best of Deadline 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More Everything We Know About 'Nobody Wants This' Season 2 So Far List Of Hollywood & Media Layoffs From Paramount To Warner Bros Discovery To CNN & More
