BA passengers and crew taken hostage in Kuwait in 1990 prepare to sue airline

They claim plane was allowed to land despite government knowledge of Iraqi invasion

The wreckage of a BA Boeing 747-136 at Kuwait City airport, after BA flight 149 was detained there at the onset of the First Gulf War in 1991. Getty Images

Passengers and crew on a British Airways plane who were held hostage by Saddam Hussein after the invasion of Kuwait are preparing to sue the airline and the UK government.

They allege both knew the August 1990 invasion had begun but allowed the plane to land to install a team of former special forces and security services personnel into the Gulf state.

The 367 passengers on board the British Airways flight were held along with the crew and sent around Kuwait and Iraq by Saddam Hussein to be used as "human shields" to deter attacks by western forces seeking to liberate the invaded state.

The aircraft left London on the evening of August 1 on its way to Kuala Lumpur and made a scheduled refuelling stop in Kuwait in the early hours of August 2, after Iraqi forces had crossed the frontier.

Lawyers representing them say they were subject to beatings, rape, mock executions and starvation during their five month ordeal, which left many suffering from post-traumatic stress.

The UK apologised in 2021 after admitting Britain’s ambassador to Kuwait, Sir Michael Weston, had told the Foreign Office around midnight that Iraqi troops had crossed the border, information it said was not passed on to British Airways. The passengers' legal action disputes that assertion.

Barry Manners, who was on the flight, described seeing a group of between “half a dozen and a dozen” men, who “looked super fit and super lean”, board the plane.

“Call it what you like, black ops or whatever, but there were soldiers on the flight,” the 57-year-old businessman told The National.

“In the early days of August 1990 when the passengers were still together, we were all discussing ‘who the hell were those guys that got on the plane?’

“Because they had all disappeared. We worked out they must be some sort of military team.

“I thought I was boarding a British Airways passenger plane but I wasn’t, I was on a military transport into a live-fire war zone, several hours after a war had started.”

Mr Manners, who is a local councillor for the Conservative Party, said he was guarded by “psychopaths with automatic weapons ... and pistols, telling me the order they wanted to kill us”.

Barry Manners while he was held in Iraq. PA

The claim the flight was used to install the UK forces into Iraq was made by Stephen Davis in the book Operation Trojan Horse, which takes its title from the suspected name of the operation.

The author says he has 16 named and unnamed sources confirming there was a secret mission on BA149.

Mr Manners said he suffered psychological problems after his return to the UK and is “still angry” about what happened.

The UK authorities should have “taken us all into a room and told us to sign the Official Secrets Act, admitted what had happened and given us a degree of compensation and given us a chance of getting our lives back”.

“I just like to see some measure of justice. People lost their houses, they lost their jobs,” he said.

“We were not treated as citizens but as expendable pawns for commercial and political gain.”

He said a “victory over years of cover up and bare-faced denial will help restore trust in our political and judicial process”.

From left, Barry Manners with Shammon Roel, resident engineer of the Dukan Dam where he was held hostage. PA

Lawyers of McCue Jury and Partners estimate each of the hostages could receive damages of £170,000 ($213,020).

As well as the UK, there were passengers from India, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, France, Spain, Germany and Denmark on board.

The law firm’s managing partner Matthew Jury said: "The lives and safety of innocent civilians were sacrificed by the British government and British Airways for the sake of an off-the-books military operation.

"Both have concealed and denied the truth for more than 30 years. The victims and survivors of flight BA149 deserve justice for being treated as disposable collateral."

Parliamentary records show prime minister at the time Margaret Thatcher told MPs in September 1990 that all the passengers had left the plane and gone to hotels before the invasion.

Saddam Hussein with Stewart Lockwood, a passenger on BA149. AFP

A government representative said it has “always condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the suffering that followed and the mistreatment of those aboard BA149”.

"The responsibility for these events and the mistreatment of those passengers and crew lies entirely with the government of Iraq at the time."

BA said: "Our hearts go out to all those caught up in this shocking act of war just over 30 years ago, and who had to endure a truly horrendous experience.

"UK government records released in 2021 confirmed British Airways was not warned about the invasion."