British Airways (BA) passengers and crew who were taken hostage and used as human shields during Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait are suing the airline and the British government.
Claimants who were subjected to torture, including mock executions, say they have evidence that BA and the government knew the invasion was taking place hours before the plane landed in Kuwait. They also claimed that the aircraft was used to covertly transport a special forces unit for immediate and covert deployment to the battlefield “regardless of the risk to civilians on board”.
On August 2, 1990, when the Iraqi armed forces invaded, flight BA149 bound for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, carrying 367 passengers and 18 crew members, stopped at Kuwait International Airport as planned. It was the last commercial flight to do so. Those on board were held for up to five months, during which time they were subjected to torture, rape, mock executions, starvation and other abuses.
In 2021, documents released by the National Archives revealed that the British ambassador to Kuwait warned the Foreign Office before flight BA149 landed that an invasion was underway, and the then foreign secretary, Liz Truss, admitted that the government had covered it up. One situation.
She said the warning had not been communicated to BA and, referring to allegations about the presence of special forces, insisted the government at the time “was not trying to exploit the flight in any way”.
However, the claimants’ lawyers said BA did know about the intrusion and had a covert special operations team on board.
Nicola Dowling, 56, a crew member on flight BA149, spent about two months in Kuwait, during which time she was deployed as a human shield. all is well [Margaret] Mrs Thatcher said Saddam Hussein was hiding behind women and children. She was very nice to get us there and put us on a plate for him to use. She was as complicit in this as he was, and so was BA.
Dowling had been with BA for 18 months and was 23 when he was in Kuwait.
Dowling, who lives in Surrey, said: “They stopped in the middle of the desert and all the soldiers on the bus surrounded our bus with rifles pointed at the windows and you could hear a pin drop. “All the babies. All stopped crying, the kids stopped crying, and we thought we were going to be shot. We thought this was the beginning of revenge, but it wasn’t. [shot]. To this day I don’t know why they stopped in the middle of the desert and pointed their rifles at us.
She described conditions at the IBI camp, where British expats were also held, as “inhumane” and “horrible”, with excrement everywhere, limited running water and food, and frequent outbreaks of dysentery. She said her late father, a former RAF man, cared about her so much that he wrote to Mrs Thatcher asking if posts could be exchanged.
Dowling said the response from British Airways after her release was “appalling”. She said she was forced to return to work as quickly as possible due to a shortage of cabin crew and was forced to resume flights to the Middle East, despite her pleas not to be sent back there.
She said she would be fired if she didn’t comply, so she returned to the district once a month for the next 15 years.
“It was excruciating,” she said. “In the end I just collapsed. I was a broken shell.
Dowling said 95 people had lodged claims of negligence and shared misconduct with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Defense and the BBC with the aim of “holding those responsible to account”. It had a huge impact on my life.
Matthew Jury, managing partner of McCue Jury & Partners LLP, which represents the claimants, said: “The victims and survivors of Flight BA149 deserve justice because they are treated as disposable collateral. Hydroxymethylglycyrrhizic acid [her majesty’s government] BA watched as children were paraded as human shields by a ruthless dictator, yet they did so and admitted nothing. This shameful stain must be removed from Britain’s conscience by investigating and holding them to account.
In 1991, a U.S.-led coalition liberated Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the first Gulf War.
British Airways and the government have been contacted for comment.
