Talk:British Airways Flight 149

Stop in Kuwait

According to the wiki article the stop was scheduled. However the link to the BBC news article clearly says the stop was unscheduled.

I think it was scheduled, as I think BA used to fly LHR-KWI-MAA-KUL around that time. What is the source for the timing, though? I mean the fact if the aircraft landed before or after the invasion began, since I've been reading contradicting sources. FlyerBoy

>> It was scheduled, the stop was routine and I used to just sleep through the Kuwait stop (I was on this precise flight, incidentally).

The court actions could not have been succesful (presumably) if the flight had landed before the occupation, but I don't understand why 1. Air Traffic control at Kuwait would let it land

>> It was in the hands of Iraqi forces by then, literally at gunpoint.

2. BA surely would not want to land there if Kuwait was invaded (could have diverted to Bahrain or Doha)

>> Should have, Captain wanted to and was in constant contact - BA lied to him, repeatedly, apparently at the behest of government officials.

3. Why would the captain of the aircraft go along with a plan and the captain's decision to land the plane in a certain place

>> See above.

Iamorgan 19:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Recent news articles

There was an article in one of the UK Sunday Papers over the weekend about this incident, the BBC have this page up:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6053948.stm

I have 2 photos of the charred remains of this aircraft on the tarmac at Kuwait if anyone's interested.

About reference

Discovery Channel has a show about British Airways Flight 149,they interview a agent in that flight.Can we use it as a reference?--Oriontw 06:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

No Fatalities on this flight

No one on board the flight was killed. Also technically the flight was terminated in Kuwait thus canceling the remainder of flight. With that said all the passengers were no longer on the flight or involved with its operations.

1 person would die that was on the flight (the Kuwaiti security director), but his destination was Kuwait, which was achieved. He departed the plane and entered the city to deal with the Iraqi invasion and later was executed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.225.27.116 (talk • contribs) 22:35, 30 November 2007

>> Not quite. We believed he was killed within the confines of the airport, actually but I am not sure. I was told he never made it into Kuwait City proper, at any rate and it was even suggested that he was flying in because of collusion with the Iraqis but things went wrong and he was killed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.145.64 (talk) 17:50, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Involving British Airways Flight 149 was a Boeing 747 hull loss

The aircraft, registered as G-AWND, was first delivered in 1971 and the assigned flight as Flight 149 from London to Kuala Lumpur with 385 people on board, it made a stop in Kuwait before refuelling hours after the Gulf War began, All passengers and crew were taken hostage by Iraqis on the time of the loss. The aircraft had wrecked on following day, August 2, 1990. - 10:57, January 5, 2008 (UTC)

>> No, "The Gulf War" started later, we had all been freed and returned to UK before the war actually started, the plane landed several hours after Iraq invaded Kuwait, the incident which ultimately led to war. Oh, the plane was most certainly not destroyed the following day, either, indeed we did not actually land until August 2nd, (approximately 0400 local, 0100 GMT) and about two days later we had luggage removed from the still intact aircraft and crew were permitted to run the APU and other tasks, with the hope that the plane would still be able to take off, if permitted.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.145.64 (talk) 17:53, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

The Last Flight To Kuwait

There's a documentary on YouTube entitled The Last Flight To Kuwait about BA Flight 149 here: [1]

Apparently the flight was used to insert covert MI6 and SAS personnel into Kuwait to set up observation posts for reporting back on the suspected imminent Iraqi invasion. The programme includes interviews with passengers and also with one of the SAS men that was flown-in on the flight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.248.28 (talk) 17:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

>> Those personnel were, technically, not working for either 'MI6' or the SAS regiment by way of having officially left but aye, they were the personnel whose insertion the plane was made to land for. This is the basis of at least one court case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.145.64 (talk) 17:54, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah

According to Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, he died somewhere else on this day. It isn't clear which article is correct; I can't access the ref for this one, while the latter's ref is a dead link. Merits investigation. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 03:22, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Aircraft name error

While editing British Airways Flight 149 for some other reason, the error "Warning: Page using Template:Infobox aircraft occurrence with unknown parameter "Aircraft Name" (this message is shown only in preview)" is shown at the top in the preview. Can someone tell me what is to be corrected?--PremKudva^Talk 11:41, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Tweaked the entry to "aircraft_name" which seems to make it happy. MilborneOne (talk) 15:18, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Ah! Thanks! I didn't go to experiment in the box, my attempts before have been failures :) --PremKudva^Talk 11:41, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Delay

In the BBC documentary, the captain clearly says that he used the broken APU as an excuse to deliberately delay the flight, buying some time and allowing for further information gathering. (He also said that he later regretted doing so, as without that delay they would have probably been able to leave for Madras). I take it that the documentary cannot be used as a source, but I guess there most be some proper source reflecting the same statement? Studmult (talk) 20:50, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Why do you think the documentary cannot be used as a source? Nick Cooper (talk) 17:29, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Peter Clark

I think we should add more about Peter Clark because he was, out of nowhere, introduced in that last line. We could write Peter's Rank (Captain, First Officer, etc.) Lol78231469 (talk) 16:48, 8 November 2021 (UTC)