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

by Stephen Davis

An “un-putdownable read” (Stephen Grey, author of Ghost Plane) that reveals the true story of a plane of unsuspecting passengers who landed in a war zone and were delivered to 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Middle East, Politics, Audiobook

272 pages, Audible Audio

First published September 7, 2021

About the author

Stephen Davis is is a rock journalist and biographer, having written numerous bestsellers on rock bands, including the smash hit Hammer of the Gods. He lives in Boston.

Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flight 149: A Hostage Crisis, a Secret Special Forces Unit, and the Origins of the Gulf War is a tragic yet fascinating account of August 1, 1990's routine British Airways flight, filled with 386 passengers and crew, that was mysteriously cleared to land and refuel in Kuwait when a war had broken out. This resulted in a month long international hostage crisis.
Award winning investigative journalist Stephen Davis gives us a informative story after 30 years of investigation revealing the British and American governments gambled with the lives of those on the flight. British Airways 149 was used to transport a covert special operatives unit whose role was to gather intelligence. Once on the tarmac Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Forces seized the aircraft and took the passengers and crew hostage upending their lives forever.
With first hand passenger testaments, new observations from covert sources and disclosure from secret soldiers the author unravels the British and U.S. governments nefarious involvement in the ill-fated flight.
Highly Recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley and Perseus Books/Public Affairs for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book. It explains the reasons that British Airways Flight 149 landed in Kuwait just in time for the passengers to be seized by Iraqi invasion forces. The book documents the experiences of the passengers and other hostages, known as special guests, while under the control of Iraqi forces or hiding in Kuwait. We meet ordinary civilians, government employees, airline staff, and military operatives and learn what they went through and how they fared afterwords. We also learn of the shroud of secrecy surrounding the use of the flight by the UK government to deliver covert operatives to Kuwait without the knowledge of the other passengers aboard the flight.

It is a very interesting book about a little discussed subject. I highly recommend it.

[Ell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those situations where truth is stranger than fiction. There are more twists and turns and head-scratching moments than the best thriller author can compose. In 1990, British Airways flight 149, filled with 386 passengers heading for Kuala Lumpur, was tasked with landing in Kuwait to refuel before heading on the last leg of its journey. The plane landed but it never made it back into the skies.

Prior to landing in Kuwait that day neighboring Iraq, under the command of Saddam Hussein, had launched an invasion. The airport was seized. Passengers and crew where captured and the plane was mysteriously destroyed. The detainees were released at different times according to their nationality. Many detainees have bizarre, unusual, and even brutish tales to tell and conspiracies surrounding flight 149 have been recounted time and time again.

What really happened and why is still widely speculated. Who and what was on that plane that caused such a dire situation? Why was the plane manifest removed from the electronic database the day after the plane was captured? Why was the flight not diverted to Bahrain or other safe alternative destinations? After all these years, there are so many questions that have gone unanswered.

Author Stephan Davis excels in investigative journalism and story-telling skills making this a hard book to put down. I highly recommend Flight 149: A Hostage Crisis, a Secret Special Forces Unit, and the Origins of the Gulf War to history buffs, political science buffs, documentary fans and thriller aficionados.

[Andy Horton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spoilers!! Incredible! Its probably as close to the truth that we will ever know about this strange unfolding of events. Imagine if the truth comes thru government admittance. The ultimate consequences of using a civilian aircraft to transport military operatives are frightening to imagine. In my less-experienced brain, I would think that would turn the aircraft into a target for sure. It turns civilians into circumstantial military targets. Great story!!

[Jerry Marek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice to see government lies brought to the light of day.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating story. Sometimes I felt as though diaries from passengers (hostages) were being used a bit much. However overall the book was excellent.

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed. There's scant little out there on the first Gulf War (I know many will correct me on that, so let's say I've seen scant little) and the topic is highly relevant in many ways, and therefore this book, with its teaser to be about revealing the truth behind this flight is an enticing topic. But...
While their experiences were harrowing, the author more or less spills his filing cabinet into book form. There are many, many pages of journal entries, some annotated for context, many not. I lost track of who was who (to be fair, there were several snoozy nights while consuming this volume, some mea culpa on that) and found myself wanting to get on with it to the uncovering of the truth about the flight/mission.
When that finally came, it left holes and unanswered questions. Early on the author hints that the aircraft itself may have been destroyed not by the Iraqis but by the allies and that that may have been part of the intrigue (what was in the hold? weapons for the undercover team?), but unless I missed it, the author never addressed this mystery in the very brief end-of-book section on emerged truths. It's highly possible that answers to questions like that may have never come out - that's the messy reality of history - but it would seem worthy to at least make that point and close the loop on the early teaser.
This is certainly a terrifying tale of the horrors of war that we are sadly seeing happen again, and it certainly addresses an interesting ethical question that governments had to make to look at the bigger picture - and what impact that had on innocents caught in the way. I just with it had been a little more organized, engaging, and effective in closure.

[Courtney Tychinski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I liked this book. I was born a few months after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait happened, and such is the way of modern history curriculum, this event was never covered in any of my history classes. The author provided a well-rounded view of what happened right before and during the invasion from the passengers and crew of Flight 149, Westerners who worked and were subsequently stuck in the country in hiding, and the British and US governments.

My one relatively big criticism is the title. While yes, the book does heavily cover the passengers and crew of Flight 149 (but mainly just the passengers, not even much about the plane or flight path), I feel like the title gave the impression that the entire book would solely focus on this flight. It does not; the book, like I mentioned earlier, gives attention to the invasion itself, non-Flight 149 Westerners who were in Kuwait, government insight, AND the flight passengers, and all equally. So, I felt like a different title would've been more reflective of the content.

[Tom Ferguson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting but was a slog to read. Obviously the events are harrowing, but the author could have tried to break the narrative of misery a little.
The details of suppression by the UK government of the victims attempts the seek the truth of why their plane was allowed to land in Kuwait, hours after the Iraqi invasion, is deeply disturbing. A shameful act of deceit by Thatcher and the Tories, one of many…..

[Gareth Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

The crazy story of flight BA149 which was allowed to land in Kuwait just after the Iraqi invasion in 1990 and the subsequent government cover up of the facts. Harrowing yet absorbing in equal measure.

[Greg Parrott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to see how it all got started. I don't remember much about the hostages at all.

[Gab · Rating 5 out of 5]

(for spreadsheet info: 322 pages)

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very good read. Go figure that the governments of the main two countries involved are accused of cover-ups and lies, even in the 1990's.

I read this book after seeing a segment on TV about British Airways Flight 149. Since I do not remember this incident, I was interested in reading about it. I'm glad I did.

The book is about a BA flight that landed in Kuwait just as the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi military forces begins. Onboard were some mysterious passengers that got off the plane. The airport had already been closed due to the potential threat of Iraq. In other words, the plane could have been diverted but it wasn't due to the mysterious passengers.

What happened next is despicable. The passengers were abandoned by some of the flight crew including the pilot. So much for the captain going down with the ship. It was one horror after another for the passengers. You really feel for those involved.

Although the whole book is interesting, the last few chapters tell it all. It was hard to put the book down. My biggest gripe about the book is there is no timeline mentioned about the events. There are some spotty dates but nothing definite.

[Maureen Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the book in a bookstore in Edinburgh, Scotland and was able to get at the library home rather than add to my luggage weight. Don't do this, a lot of the books I saw in the UK and Ireland were not available in the US! The books is VERY thorough and interviews so many people and their experiences, it was hard to put down. I feel so sorry for all the characters, what they went through as" human shields" and how their governments let most of them down. The press was played to downplay their situation, and the "no negotiating with hostage takers" edict hung over their heads throughout their experience.

Excellent research and interviewing, the story is fascinating.

[Jess Halloran]

I am not going to rate this as it is a non fiction and I don’t believe should be rated. The start of the book was super interesting but lost my interest around the 175-200 page mark. I pushed through and it regained my interest at the 250ish mark. At times it was super repetitive and jumped around to different perspectives but not in a way that it was easy to follow so i found it hard to read sometimes. The story itself is devastating but the book just didn’t read well for me in the middle. I would of loved to have a list of people and who they were at the front of the book so when jumping from perspectives i could go back and remember who i am following as sometimes i would forget. Overall it was an amazing story and was incredibly interesting to know about the ins and outs of secret military missions.

[Nada Al-Karmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very interesting and eye-opening book to read. The details included in it were astounding. I was born and raised in Kuwait and my family was in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion and they told me about some of the horrors that happened but not to the extent that this book revealed.

The author's writing and narrative style made it easy to read and digest. once you start reading, it is hard to put it down.

I hope one day the victims of BA149 get justice for the wrongs done to them.

[Enigmaticblue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was 10 when the Gulf War happened, and my parents didn't watch much news around us kids. I don't remember hearing about any of this. I do remember the yellow ribbons, but that's about it. I appreciated the fact that this piece of history was finally brought into the light for the sake of the victims.

[Pam White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really interesting read of a forgotten event that happened at the very beginning of the first Gulf War, when Iraq invaded & annexed Kuwait. All of the lives on Flight 149 were impacted forever, leaving those people with PTSD for the rest of their lives. The British govt has a lot to answer for in this ugly episode, which I understand they refused to address at all for years.

[Benjamin Roffler · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the book starts with the plane landing in Kuwait, it drifts off and goes into directions and talks about people that don’t have much to do with Flight 149.

I loved the twist with spys but wish there was a larger emphasis on that part of the story as I lost interest in other people’s stories.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard about Flight 149 until I saw this book on a recent search. It is a good read, but it will make your stomach turn when you learn of the betrayal of so many people who had no business being in Kuawati the night of the Iraqi invasion. It is well worth the time investment to read.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moving, eye-opening account of Flight 149. Well-balanced account with facts and figures and heart-breaking accounts of the bravery of the passengers and staff of the flight. Appalling cover-up by the UK and US governments.

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly horrifying and yet fascinating look into the awful things the UK and US intelligence services will do. A thriller-style book that is terrifyingly true. Very well done!

[Con Duggan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unbelievable. But sadly, knowing what we know now of what our government was (is) capable of, it is indeed utterly believable, compelling and a superb account of a shameful chapter in our recent history.

[Luke Shearman · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books I’ve read. Incredible detail & very well written. It’s one I’ll keep & re-read in the future.

[Heidi Burton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Absolutely great stories of the survivors, unfortunately it was only like two chapters and the rest of the book explains the political and military sides of operation desert storm