In August 1990, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was increasingly hostile towards the small neighbouring country of Kuwait and gathering militia there.
But just as Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, a British Airways flight carrying 367 passengers and 18 crew landed at the airport.
Why was a commercial flight allowed to land in a place that was so obviously about to become a warzone?
The British and US governments tried to cover up the real reason, claims New Zealand journalist Stephen Davis in his new book Operation Trojan Horse.
Journalist and author Stephen Davis. Photo: AFP
On 2 August 1990, British Airways Flight 149 flew from Heathrow to Kuwait - a scheduled stopover en route to its final destination Kuala Lumpur.
Little did the passengers and crew know that the plane was carrying military personnel engaged in a ‘black ops’ mission, Davis tells Kathryn Ryan.
“This was what's called a 'deniable mission' run by a group called The Increment, which draws upon Special Forces, SAS, SPS and MI6 to run missions that governments would rather you not know about.”
In the 30 subsequent years, successive British governments have lied about this operation, Davis says, and British Airways maintains that they received a briefing that it was safe to fly.
But the person who was supposed to have given this briefing to the airline - Anthony Paice, an MI6 station chief in Kuwait City - told Davis this wasn't true.
Paice says he told the airline the exact opposite, Davis says.
At the time, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher said that Flight 149 had landed before it was known the invasion had started.
But Britain was informed by the US Defence Intelligence Agency that "Iraqi troops have crossed the border and invaded Kuwait" four hours earlier than Thatcher claimed, Davis says.
“[At that time] BA 149 is still three hours and a bit flying time from Kuwait. So, it's an outright lie.”
The CIA also gave formal intelligence of imminent war 24 hours before the plane flew, Davis says.
“[The warnings] started when the plane easily could have been turned around. But it was sent on to land this intelligence team.”
Flight 149 had enough fuel to reach Bahrain, he says, but instead, it landed in a war zone.
The British government decided to land the plane, and use its passengers and crew as a Trojan horse, in order to get a covert operations team into Kuwait, Davis says.
“I think is outrageous, but equally bad was that after the human shields got home, the British government commissioned a report, which they called Operation Sandcastle. a slightly bizarre name, by the military police, and they interviewed all the human shields about the suffering that they had undergone in captivity.
“It's a horror story of rapes, assaults, mock executions, near-starvation conditions. No sooner had they got this report, then they suppressed it, it was supposed to be tabled in Parliament, they suppressed it and called it an official secret. And still today, 30 years later, it's classified.”
One month after Flight 149 was captured, and under some force, Margaret Thatcher made a statement to the British Parliament about what had happened to the plane, Davis says.
“They knew exactly when the invasion started, nevertheless Mrs Thatcher told the House of Commons that the plane landed, crew and passengers got off, the replacement crew got on, and all of this happens before the invasion started.
“Now, every single sentence in that statement is a lie. And she knew it to be a lie at the time because they knew on the day that that wasn't true.”
Subsequent governments in the UK, both Conservative and Labour, have maintained the deceit, Davis says.
“The ability to run these deniable black ops missions is treasured by governments of all stripes. So, you know, the Labour government was just as keen to lie about it as the previous Conservative governments.”
Lord King, chairman of British Airways at the time and an extremely close friend of Thatcher, would also have been aware of the operation, Davis says.
“This was, according to my undercover people, a Thatcher-driven operation. She was extremely gung-ho about it.”
Even with black ops missions, there are certain legalities to be followed, Davis says.
“One of the things is that you have to inform the airline of what you're doing. So, Lord King was in the know. And of course, [Richard] Brunyate, the captain - who we subsequently discovered was an MI6 asset - was in the know, as well.
“The follow up to this ends up being very strange, so they give their permission for this secret mission to happen. The plane gets stuck on the ground, the passengers get taken as human shields.”
British Airways fought through the courts all the way to the House of Lords to deny their passengers any compensation for what happened, Davis says.
The airline claimed the plane was destroyed by Iraqi troops and received a huge insurance payout for the plane, says.
“This always seemed to me to be unlikely because as the Iraqis left Kuwait, they looted literally everything they could down to taps and light bulbs.
“I thought to myself, why did they leave a British Airways plane sitting on the airfield? And the answer is that the plane was destroyed by the US Air Force.”
Compensation for passengers on Flight 149 was a mixed bag, Davis says.
“The British passengers got nothing, they were denied compensation by the House of Lords. The Americans, bless them all, sued and British Airways made secret settlements to pay them off.
Photo: Allen and Unwin
“The French passengers sued and eventually won in court.
“The poor New Zealanders just got a letter from Lord King saying 'I'm terribly sorry and here's a few $100 notes for your missing baggage'. That was pretty outrageous.”
The passengers who were taken hostage by Iraqi forces were all suddenly released by Saddam Hussein out of the blue, and it's still unknown why, he says.
“He just suddenly got up one day and said 'you can all go' and off they went to great scenes of joy... but followed by 30 years of misery.”
The ordeal of the British Airways Flight 149 passengers and crew, among them a handful of New Zealanders, has compelled Davis since he first heard about their experience.
Operation Trojan Horse is the culmination of 30 years of research, including interviews with former hostages who still bear the scars of their ordeal, Davis says.
“I've interviewed a lot of these people and they'll be talking about it calmly … and then there'll be a moment where they remember the terror and the horror, and the hands will shake and they'll tear up.”
