A flight which was chartered by the government to bring stranded Britons back from the Middle East has landed at Stansted Airport.
The US-Israeli war with Iran has entered its seventh day, with the first Government-chartered plane evacuating British nationals from the region touched down in the UK.
The US and Israel have continued to attack Iran with nationwide strikes, and in turn Iran has kept up retaliatory strikes on Israel, US bases and across the region.
It has led to thousands of Britons leaving the region with some 4,000 returning on commercial flights.
The first was a Titan Airways flight which landed at London Stansted from Oman shortly before 1am this morning.
It was initially due to take off around 24 hours before being delayed due to operational issues, including delays in boarding passengers.
Passengers on the flight, which flew in from Muscat, told of sleeping in car parks in Dubai as they heard explosions during the beginning of the conflict.
Amelia Reid and Samuel Sharp said they travelled to Dubai for a long weekend, arriving last Friday, and by Saturday evening they were sheltering under their hotel.
Mr Sharp said: “Saturday, we ended up sleeping in a car park in the basement of the hotel with about 100 other people, after the alarms went off on our phones.
“Didn’t get told if it was safe to go up or not, just went up for breakfast and I think we heard a massive bang after that, so it’s just on edge, on edge for four days.”
Ms Reid, who had been travelling in a wheelchair, said: “We left Dubai yesterday lunchtime, went straight to the Oman border, and went on a coach all the way to Muscat airport in the hope we’d get on the government plane.”
According to reports, the war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 100 in Lebanon, around a dozen in Israel and six US troops.
Etihad Airways announced on Friday it would be resuming a “limited commercial flight schedule” until March 19, including flights to and from Abu Dhabi to Heathrow, Manchester and Dublin.
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