THE DOOMED FLIGHT BA 149

Have you ever heard the doomed flight BA 149?

I bet you have never heard of it.

Well it was a flight from Heathrow bound to Kuala Lumpur, refuelling in Kuwait City on the night of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait.

This is a chilling story of the victims of a covert MI6 mission that used British Airways flight 149 on the night of the start of the first Gulf War on August 1st 1990. It was a mission that then went badly wrong, delivering 367 civilian passengers into the hands of Saddam’s Republican Guard. In a traumatic and long-lasting ordeal, they were taken hostage and dispersed to allied targets in Kuwait and Iraq as part of Saddam’s human shield. An attendant was raped by Iraqi soldiers. BBC had reported it as an ill-executed covert MI6 mission at the start of the first Gulf War, The Secret of British Airways Flight 149, has been broadcast on BBC2

BA 149 was secretly used at the 11th hour by an MI6 operation to get a covert unit of former Special Forces men and Intelligence Officers into Kuwait for the purpose of gathering intelligence ahead of Saddam’s looming invasion of Kuwait.

No-one would ever have known of the mission had the plane completed its re-fuelling and departed. But there was a major miscalculation. Saddam’s tanks had crossed into Kuwait earlier than predicted on the morning of August 2nd and met little opposition. As they sped towards Kuwait City BA 149 was still three hours away from landing. But while other flights were diverted from Kuwait City International Airport, BA 149 was not. It was a race against time - a gamble with the fate of 367 passengers and 18 crew at stake - a gamble that MI6 seemingly were prepared to take to get their secret unit into Kuwait.

Me and the Malaysian Passengers

Malaysia was not an enemy to Iraq and due to that fact all Malaysian passengers were handed to the Malaysian Embassy in Kuwait and they were then transported to the Malaysian Embassy in Baghdad. To cope with the big number of refugees, the Malaysian Embassy in Baghdad requested all Malaysians in Baghdad to house some of Malaysian passengers of Flight BA 149. As for me, some of the female passengers stayed in my house before arrangement made to send them out of Iraq.

As a bachelor that time and I was pampered by the ladies during that short period. Twenty of them stayed in my house ranging from 4 years old girl to 65 years old grandma. My house were cleaned, the marble floors were so shiny, no dust, the curtains cleaned and I had hot and good food everyday when I returned home from work. It was heaven. They even wore my clothes because they were handed 'sehelai sepinggang' to me. A chinese girl student wore my 'kain pelikat' everyday.

After one week all my 'dayangs' had to leave. The Malaysian Embassy had arranged busses to trasport all stranded Malaysians to Amman, Jordan and a chartered flight flew them home to KL. They cried before they leave. They gave me presents which I kept in good condition. A paper weight from a student is still on my work desk today. The grandma asked me to visit her in the UK.

When they left I felt so lonely. My house back to its usual mess and no more hot food waiting for me when I returned home from work.

God, I missed them.