From time to time I explore the offerings on the Sky Documentaries channel. Last night I watched Flight 149: Hostage of War. There was a thorough review in the Guardian a few days ago so I'm just going to focus on a few essential points. It is centred around events on 2 August 1990, a date best known for the start of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
My default position for "revelations" of secret government plots is scepticism. Nevertheless some known facts exist:
- British Airways flight 149 left London Heathrow at 19:05 BST on 1 August 1990 en route to Kuala Lumpur with stops scheduled in Kuwait and Madras (now Chennai). The flight had been delayed from its original departure time of 18:00.
- The flight touched down in Kuwait at 04:13 local time on 2 August, by which time Iraq's invasion had begun.
- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stated in Parliament that the flight had landed before the invasion began. In 2021, however Foreign Office papers were declassified and released and showed that the UK government was not only aware that of the invasion before the flight's arrival time in Kuwait but that they "allowed" the flight to take off from London knowing that there was a risk the invasion would take place imminently. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss confirmed that the government had misled British Airways by not passing on a warning about the invasion.
I'm going to skip over the horrendous depictions of Iraqi behaviour in the film and move to the key assertion behind its focus on the class action being taken on behalf of 95 of the passengers against the UK government and British Airways, which is that there are suggestions that a "military looking" group of young men boarded late in London, deplaned first in Kuwait and may not have been included in the passenger manifest (which would have been illegal under UK law).
The inference posed by the programme makers is that it's possible that the UK government had a group of special forces operatives (referred to as The Increment, a supposed group of former SAS soldiers and MI6 officers) added to the flight in order to operate undercover in Kuwait. On 2 October 1992, in response to a question on the issue, now-PM John Major said "I can confirm, however, that there were no British military personnel on board the flight". Of course, if the Increment exists and is a group of ex-military, this would have been a truthful statement.
Following a BBC documentary about the flight in 2007, there have been a number of claims from "reliable sources" that something of the kind actually occurred.
My inherent scepticism allows that (a) it's a plausible explanation (b) that it's equally likely to be untrue (c) even if it's true, isn't that what you'd expect a responsible government, about to go war, to do? (d) there are sometimes legitimate reasons for governments to lie (e) it may sometimes, for the "greater good", be possible to argue that sacrificing the liberty, and even perhaps the lives, of 367 innocent passengers in order to further the long term defeat of a ruthless dictator. As you can see, although it's a really well produced and purposeful film, I don't easily buy into the easy conspiracy theory, attractive and entertaining though it is.
I look forward to hearing of your opinions, if you watch it.