British holidaymakers touched down at Heathrow Terminal 4 on Monday evening (Image: PA)
Heartwarming pictures show how British holidaymakers touched down at Heathrow Terminal 4 on Monday evening on the first flight back from the United Arab Emirates since Iran unleashed its wave of strikes across the Middle East.
The Etihad Airways aircraft came in at 7.16pm on Monday — two days after US and Israeli forces killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and set off a fierce Iranian counter-offensive that has trapped more than 100,000 Britons across the Gulf region.
‘I could hear an explosion’
Windsor dancer Isabel Robertson, 29, walked into the arms of her mother Alba, 62, in the arrivals hall after spending days sheltering in Dubai. She had planned to fly home on Saturday, but her flight disappeared from the departures board just moments before the reality of what was happening hit home.
She told reporters: “I went to see my friends. I had such a great week. I had meant to have been leaving on Saturday. My friend was going to drive me to the airport. I was like ‘Why has my flight been cancelled?’ Ten minutes later I could hear an explosion.”
She added: “There were explosions this morning. It has been terrifying, like honestly, terrifying. The noises, it was terrifying, the explosions. I used to live there and it was my first time back in three years.”
Her mother said: “When I watched the news, I was very worried.”
The upmarket districts of Dubai Marina and Palm Jumeirah bore the brunt of some of the heaviest strikes, with the Fairmont The Palm consumed by fire and the iconic Burj Al Arab sustaining damage.
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Sisters Hema Patel (left), 54, and Minal Patel, 57, with their niece Saraya Vann Patel, 8 (Image: PA)
‘Not knowing if your child is safe’
Amy Maguire, 23, made the eight-hour journey home having been caught up in the chaos in Abu Dhabi alongside her baby daughter Anabel and her parents Rebecca and Jeff Moses from Barrow-in-Furness.
She told the Daily Mail: “It has been horrifying. It has been really difficult not knowing if your child is safe. The sounds have been horrendous. We had to go in this little room under the hotel.”
Fay McCaul, 41, had a scheduled Saturday departure that turned into something altogether more alarming as the terminal around her descended into panic.
According to the report, she said: “It was just taking ages to board, with no announcements, so we didn’t know what was going on. And then after the boarding time sirens started going off in the airport and everyone started receiving texts on their phones with alarm signals to stay away from windows because of potential missile strikes. So then it was pretty chaotic, and the airline obviously didn’t know what was going on either.”
Lindsay Elvidge and husband Ric, both 60, from Somerset, arrive at Terminal 4 of London Heathrow (Image: PA)
Massive evacuation under way
Some 102,000 British nationals scattered across the Middle East have now 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.
Gulf airspace has been largely shut down in the wake of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran, with Tehran’s counter-strikes hammering tourist and expat destinations including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Kuwait. Departure boards at major regional airports have gone dark, leaving tens of thousands of Britons — whether on holiday, working or mid-transit — with nowhere to go.
A community of social media influencers who have made Dubai their base remains divided, with a number publicly refusing to leave and insisting the city presents less danger than the streets of London, even as missiles and suicide drones continue to target military installations, oil facilities, airports and hotels across the emirate.