The story of one traveller stranded in the Middle East amid regional air strikes

(2 Mar 2026)
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Near Doha, Qatar - 28 February 2026
++9:16++

1. Mid interior of Qatar Airways flight showing view out of windows as plane circles near Doha airport
2. Wide interior of Qatar Airways flight showing cabin interior as captain makes announcement on tannoy that Baghdad airspace is closed due to security issues

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Doha, Qatar - 2 March 2026
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3. SOUNDBITE (English) Varun Krishnan, technology entrepreneur travelling to Barcelona from India:

“It seemed something was off. I mean we were seeing some news about tension in the region and I was tracking our flight and when we were near the Iraqi airspace that's when I realised maybe we are not proceeding on course, we seem to be circling around and then I was digging deeper, it was not just our aircraft but a bunch of aircraft around the region it was not just Qatar but Emirates Etihad aircraft as well which were holding around.”

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++USER GENERATED CONTENT: This video has been authenticated by AP based on the following validation checks:
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Near Doha, Qatar - 28 February 2026
++9:16++

4. Wide interior of Qatar Airways flight showing cabin interior as captain makes tannoy announcement

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Doha, Qatar - 2 March 2026
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5. SOUNDBITE (English) Varun Krishnan, technology entrepreneur travelling to Barcelona from India:

“The captain was gracious enough and thankfully actually came and was updating us very often as to what was happening, but still people were panicking as to why are we not going to Barcelona. The entire plane was people, businessmen, journalists, it was not many tourists as such, it was mostly people going for the conference (Mobile World Congress in Barcelona) because it's a very big conference in the telecommunication and mobile industry.”

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++USER GENERATED CONTENT: This video has been authenticated by AP based on the following validation checks:
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Near Doha, Qatar - 28 February 2026
++9:16++

6. Wide pan interior of Qatar Airways flight showing view out of windows as plane descends for landing towards Doha airport

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Doha, Qatar - 2 March 2026
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7. SOUNDBITE (English) Varun Krishnan, technology entrepreneur travelling to Barcelona from India:

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++USER GENERATED CONTENT: This video has been authenticated by AP based on the following validation checks:
++Video and audio content checked against known locations and events
++Video is consistent with independent AP reporting
++Video cleared for use by all AP clients by content creator Varun Krishnan
++Mandatory on-screen credit Varun Krishnan

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