the flight was used as a Trojan horse to transport undercover British military and intelligence personnel into Kuwait. Several investigations have since been conducted into the incident, leading to official denials from Margaret Thatcher, Britain's Prime Minister at the time, of any government efforts to influence British Airways' actions in regard to Flight 149. On 23 November 2021, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss confirmed that the government of that time had misled British Airways and the public about a prior warning that was not passed on to the airline. Aircraft and crew Flight 149 was operated by a Boeing 747-136 with the manufacturer serial number 19764 and registration G-AWND. The aircraft bore the name City of Leeds and had initially been delivered to British Airways' predecessor BOAC before entering service with British Airways in 1974. At the time of the incident, G-AWND was one of the oldest aircraft in BA's fleet and was due to be replaced by a newer generation 747. The pilot-in-command of the Heathrow-Kuwait leg was Captain Richard Brunyate while the cabin crew were overseen by Cabin Service Director Clive Earthy. Peter Clark had been due to take over as captain for the Kuwait-Madras leg. Background At 18:05 GMT on 1 August 1990, British Airways Flight 149 (BA 149) departed from London Heathrow Airport with 367 passengers on board, its final destination was Kuala Lumpur with scheduled layovers in Kuwait City and Madras. The flight had been delayed at Heathrow for several hours; according to the captain of the first leg of the flight, Richard Brunyate, the cause was a fault in the aircraft's auxiliary power unit; some passengers claim to have heard crewmembers arguing if they should proceed or not. The flight had a scheduled stopover at Kuwait City; however, this was not cancelled or changed despite media reports of the worsening political situation in the region. Kuwait's larger neighbour, Iraq, had issued demands for territory to be surrendered to its control and had been staging a military buildup on the border between the two nations for weeks. During the delay at Heathrow, the flight crew requested up to date reports on the situation in Kuwait and were told nothing untoward was happening despite news of growing tension. Shortly after the flight departed, the crew radioed ahead for another report, speaking to both Kuwaiti air traffic control (ATC) and British Airways Flight 148, a Lockheed Tristar which