Latest news with #SkyDocumentaries
Irish Independent
12-06-2025
- Irish Independent
‘Flight 149: Hostage of War': The staggering story of 400 people taken hostage by Saddam Hussein's forces –and the cover up that followed
Governments lie all the time. At the centre of staggering documentary Flight 149: Hostage of War (Sky Documentaries, available on demand) is a massive lie compounded by a cover-up: that the 400 passengers and crew of British Airways Flight 149, who were taken hostage by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces 35 years ago, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Daily Mail
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Race Across The World: I could win Race Across The World's £20,000 first prize - and here's how
Why not just hire a car? The rules of Race Across The World prohibit air travel, but taxis and hitch-hiking are fair game . . . so there can't be anything wrong with renting your own wheels. As contestants neared the finish line at India 's southern tip, after a trek via train, bus and tuktuk from the Great Wall of China, all of them had cash to spare. Budgets have been tighter than ever before on this series but, despite that, every one of the four couples had enough money to go by cab on the final leg. It's taken them 51 days to cover 8,700 miles, which is an average of 170 miles a day. Driving a rental, they could easily have covered the distance in half the time. And if a hire car was too expensive, why not buy a motorbike? It's just the devious way my mind works, but surely there must be a shortcut to victory. When the race was set in Canada two years ago, several pairs of competitors cadged lifts with obliging Canucks. I'd be inclined to find an amateur chauffeur and offer him a bribe: get me to the final checkpoint ahead of the pack, and you can have a quarter of the £20,000 prize money. It's an expensive way to win — but losing is more expensive. Muscle rub of the week When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, we learned on Flight 149: Hostage Of War (Sky Documentaries), President George Bush was in the White House, getting a massage. That's what you call lying down on the job. None of the five duos was prepared to cheat, of course, because the real winners on this show are the ones who forge tighter bonds with each other along the way. The race's producers have done an exceptional job of picking the right participants: all of them have been likeable and interesting, and every couple has grown closer week by week. Both sets of siblings, Elizabeth and Letitia, and Brian and Melvyn, barely knew each other at the start of the trip. Thank goodness that, as it turned out, they discovered they genuinely liked each other. Might have been awkward if the adventure had simply served to remind them why they drifted apart in the first place. We've all been hoping that young lovers Fin and Sioned would get wed along the way. Sioned certainly was. When she and her boyfriend were presented with garlands at a flower market in Bengaluru, she told him hopefully, 'We can get married now.' The most touching relationship has been that of the eventual winners, mother-and-son Caroline and Tom. She obviously adores him, and he's learned to show his appreciation, finding the words to thank her in a sweet diary entry. Still, she's sensible to be wary of him first thing in the morning. Her tactic at home, she said, is to take him a cup of tea in bed and a bacon butty — and then run. Millions of parents will sympathise. It was the show's bad luck, though, that the most intriguing couple, divorcees Yin and Gaz, were eliminated halfway through the series. What would it take to bring those two back together — maybe a stint in the jungle on I'm A Celebrity next?
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
What happened to Flight 149? True story behind Sky documentary explained
Sky Documentaries delves into an extraordinary chapter from the Gulf War that is as fascinating as it is horrifying in Flight 149: Hostage of War. The 367 passengers and crew of British Airways flight 149 were taken hostage after the plane landed at Kuwait International Airport on 2 August 1990, shortly after Iraq launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour, prompting the start of the Gulf War. Some hostages were mistreated, seriously sexually assaulted and kept in near-starvation conditions. Until recently, many accounts connected to the BA flight in August 1990 – particularly about when the government had known the invasion was under way and around claims that it had let it go ahead for intelligence gathering purposes – had been officially denied. The new documentary examines the accounts of passengers and crew, among others, about what happened that day. A synopsis from Sky says: "On August 2, 1990, just after Saddam's forces storm Kuwait, a civilian flight unwittingly touches down in the middle of the warzone. The passengers and crew find themselves trapped, held as hostages by Saddam Hussein, becoming pawns in a rapidly escalating international crisis that will reshape the Middle East. "For over three decades, the British government denied any prior knowledge of the invasion before the plane's ill-fated landing. Now, new information has come to light to challenge the official narrative and the surviving hostages are taking the British government and BA to court to seek justice and the truth." Viewers will see some of the surviving hostages, Kuwaiti resistance fighters, investigative journalist Stephen Davis, and political insiders give their view on the events that unfolded. But what happened to BA Flight 149? BA flight 149 took off from Heathrow on 1 August 1990 after hours of delays with 385 people on board (including 18 crew). They were bound for Subang International Airport, which at the time was the main travel hub for Kuala Lumpur. On its journey to Malaysia, the flight was scheduled for a refuelling stop in Kuwait and another in Madras. But Iraq had launched an invasion of Kuwait in the early hours of 2 August and the plane never reached Subang as Hussein's forces had taken control of Kuwait International airport. Some of the passengers had been due to finish their journey in Kuwait and left the plane, while those expecting to continue on were told that the airport had been closed for two hours. But when Iraqi forces reportedly bombed the runway and took out the control tower, the remaining people on board were evacuated from the plane, but then captured by the army and taken as hostages. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Farm (@ The empty Flight 149 was later blown up on the runway, but it isn't clear who was responsible for destroying it – the US military may have been trying to prevent Iraq from using it. Although the hostages were kept in the same hotel to begin with, they were later split up into smaller groups and held in different locations in Kuwait and Iraq. Their horrific ordeal included mental and physical abuse, rape and witnessing Kuwaiti civilians and soldiers killed by the army. The plane's pilot Captain Richard Brunyate managed to escape with the Kuwaiti resistance, later explaining that his father was considered an enemy by Hussein and he worried what would happen to him if his name was recognised. Some other small numbers of passengers and crew also managed to escape with the resistance at various points. One of the hostages died in captivity, and the others either escaped or were released in the weeks and months after their capture. Women and children were given the chance to be released in late August, but the hostages left behind were used by the Iraqi army as human shields whilst moving between locations. The last remaining hostages were released in December 1990. British Airways immediately complained that they had been allowed to fly into Kuwait after the invasion had begun, arguing that it should have been designated as a war zone by the Foreign Office to redirect the stopover. Then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher claimed that the flight had arrived into Kuwait hours before the invasion, but many of the passengers and crew reported hearing gunfire, tanks and loud bangs when they landed in Kuwait City. The airline has awarded damages to some of the groups of passengers who took court action against them. However, despite the British government denying trying to influence BA in any way to fly into Kuwait, BA have repeatedly made statements that they were told by the government that it was safe to fly there. A 2007 documentary revealed that other flights had been diverted away from Kuwait during the journey and that news of the invasion could have been passed on to Flight 149 at least an hour before it landed for refuelling. The documentary also included claims from an anonymous former SAS soldier who claimed that he and his team had been put on board the flight for intelligence gathering on the invasion. In 2021, then foreign secretary Liz Truss admitted that the government at the time had misled BA by not passing on a warning to the airline. A group of passengers are now suing the government and the airline over the claims that the flight was allowed to land in Kuwait as part of an SAS mission, with the new Sky documentary telling their story. The documentary airs on Sky Documentaries on Wednesday, 11 June at 9pm and is then repeated over the following week. It can also be streamed on Sky and NOW.
Scottish Sun
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Sky customers can unlock 35 extra TV channels for FREE today in surprise upgrade
TOP TELLY Sky customers can unlock 35 extra TV channels for FREE today in surprise upgrade Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) SKY is dishing out access to 35 premium channels at no extra cost to customers this weekend. The special offer also includes 35,000 shows episodes on demand. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 1 Sky customers don't have to take any action to claim the freebie Credit: Sky Viewers on Sky's cheapest £15 package, Sky Essential TV, will benefit from the boost to Sky Ultimate TV. However, the channels will only be available from today until Monday. It's designed to give people a taster of the shows to watch elsewhere. They include Sky Max, Sky Crime, Sky Documentaries, U&Gold, and Comedy Central. Highlights at the moment range from Matlock and The Rookie on Sky Witness, Hacks and Rob Beckett's Smart TV on Sky Max, Boyzone No Matter What on Sky Documentaries, Planet Weird on Sky Nature and The Righteous Gemstones on Sky Comedy. Customers don't have to take any action to gain access to the channels. They will all be unlocked for the duration of the giveaway. Sky Essential TV was launched at the end of last year as a cheaper way for telly fans to watch Sky TV, with Sky Atlantic, Netflix and Discovery+ all included. Sky Ultimate TV costs £7 more (a total of £21). It comes as Sky just launched a brand new TV product in the UK, Sky Glass Air. Discover new features on Sky TV that make it even easier to find favourite shows The device builds on the company's existing streamed TV offering, which does away with a satellite dish on the side of your house. Instead, channels are all transmitted via a broadband connection. Sky Glass Air is a cheaper option with no built-in soundbar unlike the main Sky Glass model, making it much thinner. The Sky Essential TV package is only available to those with Sky Stream and Sky Glass.
The Irish Sun
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Sky customers can unlock 35 extra TV channels for FREE today in surprise upgrade
SKY is dishing out access to 35 premium channels at no extra cost to customers this weekend. The special offer also includes 35,000 shows episodes on demand. Advertisement 1 Sky customers don't have to take any action to claim the freebie Credit: Sky Viewers on Sky's cheapest £15 package, Sky Essential TV, will benefit from the boost to Sky Ultimate TV. However, the channels will only be available from today until Monday. It's designed to give people a taster of the shows to watch elsewhere. They include Sky Max, Sky Crime, Sky Documentaries, U&Gold, and Comedy Central. Advertisement Highlights at the moment range from Matlock and The Rookie on Sky Witness, Hacks and Rob Beckett's Smart TV on Sky Max, Boyzone No Matter What on Sky Documentaries, Planet Weird on Sky Nature and The Righteous Gemstones on Sky Comedy. Customers don't have to take any action to gain access to the channels. They will all be unlocked for the duration of the giveaway. Advertisement Most read in Tech Sky Ultimate TV costs £7 more (a total of £21). It comes as Sky just launched a brand new TV product in the UK, Discover new features on Sky TV that make it even easier to find favourite shows The device builds on the company's existing streamed TV offering, which does away with a satellite dish on the side of your house. Instead, channels are all transmitted via a broadband connection. Advertisement Sky Glass Air is a cheaper option with no built-in soundbar unlike the main Sky Glass model, making it much thinner. The Sky Essential TV package is only available to those with Sky Stream and Sky Glass. Tricks for your Sky remote Try a whole host of Sky tricks to take your TV to a whole new level. Image credit: Getty / The Sun / Sky
