First flight home from UAE touches down at Heathrow amid Iran strikes | UK | News
British holidaymakers descended on Heathrow Terminal 4 on Monday evening (Image: PA)
Heartwarming photos show how British holidaymakers landed at Heathrow Terminal 4 on Monday evening on the first flight back from the United Arab Emirates since Iran launched a wave of attacks on the Middle East.
The Etihad Airways flight arrived at 7.16pm on Monday; It comes two days after US and Israeli forces killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and launched a violent counteroffensive in Iran’s Gulf region, trapping more than 100,000 Britons.
‘I heard an explosion’
Windsor dancer Isabel Robertson, 29, entered the arms of her mother Alba, 62, in the arrivals lounge after sheltering in Dubai for days. He had planned to fly home on Saturday, but the reality of what was happening made his plane disappear from the departure board just minutes before he got home.
He told reporters: “I went to see my friends. I had a great week. I was thinking of leaving on Saturday. My friend was going to take me to the airport. ‘Why was my flight cancelled?’ I thought. Ten minutes later I heard an explosion.”
He added: “There were explosions this morning. It was truly terrifying, horrific. The sounds, it was horrific, the explosions. I used to live there and it was the first time I’ve been back here in three years.”
His mother said: “I was so worried when I watched the news.”
Luxury areas such as Dubai Marina and Palm Jumeirah have been borne the brunt of some of the worst strikes, with Fairmont The Palm destroyed by fire and the iconic Burj Al Arab damaged.
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Sisters Hema Patel, left, 54, and Minal Patel, 57, with their niece Saraya Vann Patel, 8 (Image: PA)
‘You don’t know if your child is safe’
Amy Maguire, 23, made the eight-hour journey home with her baby daughter Anabel and parents Rebecca and Jeff Moses from Barrow-in-Furness, caught up in the chaos in Abu Dhabi.
She told the Daily Mail: “It was terrible. It was really hard not knowing if your child was safe. The sounds were terrible. We had to go into this little room at the bottom of the hotel.”
Fay McCaul, 41, had a planned departure on Saturday that turned into something even more alarming as the terminal around her went into panic.
According to the report, he said: “It took a long time to get on the plane, there was no announcement, so we didn’t know what was going on. After boarding time, sirens started going off in the airport and everyone started getting text messages on their phones with alarm signals to stay away from the windows because of potential missile attacks. It was pretty chaotic at the time and the airline clearly didn’t know what was going on.”
Lindsay Elvidge and her husband Ric (both 60) from Somerset arrive at London Heathrow Terminal 4 (Image: PA)
Major evacuation continues
Some 102,000 British citizens scattered across the Middle East have registered with the Foreign Office as Whitehall draws up contingency plans for what could become one of the most significant peacetime evacuations in recent British history.
Following the US-Israeli operation against Iran, Gulf airspace was largely closed; Tehran’s counterattacks are hitting tourist and foreign destinations including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Kuwait. Departure boards at major regional airports have been blacked out, leaving tens of thousands of Britons – whether on holiday, working or in transit – with nowhere to go.
A community of social media influencers who have made Dubai their base is divided; Some flatly refuse to leave and insist the city poses less danger than the streets of London, even as missiles and suicide planes continue to target military installations, oil installations, airports and hotels across the emirate.
