Flight 149: A Hostage Crisis, a Secret Special Forces Unit, and the Origins of the Gulf War

by Stephen Davis

Overview

A gripping, real-life drama that reveals the true story of a plane full of unsuspecting passengers who landed in a war zone and were delivered into the hands of a murderous dictator.
 
On August 1, 1990, Flight 149 was scheduled for its routine London-to-Kuala Lumpur run. But when the plane, carrying 385 passengers and crew, landed at a Kuwait airport to refuel that day, it was surrounded by Iraqi tanks and about to be bombed by fighter jets.
 
The passengers and crew were kept as hostages and suffered brutal treatment including violent attacks, sexual assaults, and mock executions. When the survivors were eventually released, they were never told why their plane landed in the middle of an invasion, or who a mysterious team of late arrivals on the flight might have been. Their story was overshadowed by the ensuing Gulf War. Until now.
 
In Flight 149, Stephen Davis draws on unique witness accounts from the hostages, and uncovers the lies and coverups orchestrated by the British secret service and CIA. This story reveals an astonishing misuse of intelligence that changed the course of history and forever altered the relationship between the West and the Middle East.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541700048
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	09/07/2021
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	316,025
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Stephen Davis is a TV commentator, documentary film maker, newspaper editor, foreign editor, US correspondent, war correspondent, award-winning TV news and current affairs producer.  has been on the front lines of journalism for three decades as a leading journalism educator, trying to uphold the ideals of the fourth estate and to inspire others to do the same.
Davis has worked for the Sunday Times in both London and Los Angeles and was news editor and foreign editor of The Independent on Sunday. He has been a producer for 60 Minutes and 20/20, a documentary film maker for the BBC and Discovery, and has taught journalism to thousands of students from all over the world. He has won multiple awards for his investigative reporting, including a silver medal at the New York film and television awards, and has designed and run journalism degree programs in London, Sydney and Melbourne.
Now an author and educator, he teaches a course on fake news, disinformation, and misinformation at the prestigious University of Otago in his native New Zealand.







 

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 Invasion 5

2 Trapped 27

3 "Don't Try to Escape" 41

4 The Mission 53

5 The Increment 57

6 A Long Walk Home 65

7 Captivity 71

8 Survival 81

9 Siege, Part I: The Diary of George Saloom, Flight 149 Passenger 95

10 Women and Children First 109

11 Siege, Part II: The Diary of George Saloom, US Embassy Security Officer 117

12 Decisions 125

13 Safe Houses 133

14 At the Mercy of Saddam 141

15 Crack-Ups and Round-Ups 165

16 Resistance 181

17 Siege, Part II: The Diary of George Saloom, Arab Hostage 189

18 Going Home 201

19 The Cover-Up Begins 215

20 The Suffering 221

21 The Search for Truth 237

Epilogue 251

Acknowledgements / A Note About Sources 259

Index 263

Editorial Reviews

06/28/2021

Journalist Davis debuts with a doggedly researched chronicle of an obscure yet consequential episode in the Gulf War. On August 1, 1990, a British Airways flight from London to Kuala Lumpur made a scheduled refueling stop in Kuwait, even though Iraqi forces had just invaded the country. Drawing on interviews with passengers and crew members, Davis documents reassurances from the British Foreign Office that the flight “could safely proceed,” and the arrival, just before takeoff from Heathrow airport, of a group of “nine or ten muscular, clean-cut young men” who had a “military bearing.” By the time the plane landed in Kuwait City, the airport was under attack from Iraqi forces, who detained most of the passengers and crew. They, along with other Westerners held hostage elsewhere in Kuwait and Iraq, were verbally and physically abused and used as human shields. Drawing on testimony from British and American intelligence sources, Davis contends that U.K. officials, at the request of the Bush administration, used Flight 149 to insert a team of covert operatives into the country (they managed to leave the airport before the other passengers were captured). Davis provides plenty of support for his allegations, and movingly documents the psychological impact of the hostages’ ordeal. This investigation rings true. Agent: Emma Parry, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"His book is a thrilling demonstration of what impressive investigative journalism looks like."—Inside Arabia

"It is a great spy story.... like Graham Greene."—Robert Scheer, Scheer Intelligence

“A gripping study of the collateral damage caused by government decision making in war... An expertly researched study of Government duplicity."—The Australian

“Davis’ dogged reporting for three decades has produced a rollicking read, thanks to the depth and breadth of interviews he has conducted.”—Otago Daily Times

From the Publisher

2021-06-25
An investigative reporter digs into the fate of British Airways Flight 149 and its passengers and crew, whom Saddam Hussein used as “human shields” during the Gulf War.

Davis has written the closest we are likely to have to a definitive account of Britain’s calamitous decision to allow a flight from London to land in Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, hours after Iraq had invaded. After the plane touched down, Iraq took as hostages its 367 passengers and 18 crew, including British and American citizens and 11 children. Until the last were released four months later, the hostages were split up and moved repeatedly to thwart allied air attacks. In a thorough and well-paced exposé, the author convincingly rebuts Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s claims that her government failed to order the flight to divert because the invasion didn’t start until after the plane arrived in Kuwait. Drawing on more than 300 interviews with sources ranging from Flight 149’s crew and passengers to a penitent former MI6 officer, Davis offers strong evidence that the flight was instead allowed to proceed because it carried a British black-ops team mostly drawn from an ultrasecret group called the Increment or “Inc,” which Thatcher’s government wanted to have on the ground before the invasion and whose involvement was covered up in London and Washington. Davis shows vividly the cost of the official missteps in close-ups of the horrific plight of the “human shields,” some of whom were kept in squalid conditions. One group was forced to dig a trench they were told was for them; they were to be shot and buried if the invasion reached them. Britain’s blunders may have been less significant in the Gulf War than Hussein’s threat to disputed Kuwaiti oil fields, but they provide a fascinating window onto black ops’ work and hostages’ lives.

A skillfully reconstructed account of a hostage crisis and the bungling that caused it.

Kirkus Reviews