‘Nerve-wracking’: Irish businessman recalls horror at Dubai hotel after Iranian drone strike
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "‘Nerve-wracking’: Irish businessman recalls horror at Dubai hotel after Iranian drone strike")
‘Nerve-wracking’: Irish businessman recalls horror at Dubai hotel after Iranian drone strike Photograph: (X/@oc_fxx)
An Irish businessman described a “nerve-wracking” ordeal after an Iranian drone struck a Dubai hotel where he was staying, shaking his room and sparking panic as Middle East airspace closures stranded travelers.
An Irish businessman, who was staying at Fairmont The Palm Hotel in Dubai when it was struck by Iran, recounted his nerve-wracking” experience. This comes after the US and Israeli military launched strikes on Iran on Saturday (Feb 28), killing Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and several other top Iranian officials. The operation was named ‘Epic Fury’ by the US and ‘Lion’s Roar’ by Israel. The attacks came amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran and ongoing talks over Iran’s nuclear program. In retaliation, Iran launched attacks on Israel and US military bases in the region, including in Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.
Stuart Carson described hearing loud bangs on Saturday morning, which he initially assumed to be coming from construction nearby. However, later he saw Iranian missiles and drones being intercepted in the sky. Following the attack, the iconic hotel was set on fire, as visuals shared on social media revealed.
Carson, from Holywood in County Down, detailed that he was inside the hotel building at the time of the drone attack, which caused his “whole room to completely shake”.
“It was very nerve-wracking,” he told BBC News NI's Evening Extra programme. “The drone struck close to one of my friends’ rooms.”
He added, “He was there with his son. He called me and said, we’ve been attacked in some way, shape, or form.”
He described the chaotic scenes in the lobby of the hotel, “The front doors were damaged, and one of the bell boys was being pulled away. At that point, we just didn’t know what to do.” Carson, a father of two, said that they immediately took shelter at a nearby beach and later spent the evening in the basement of the hotel.
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“Once dawn broke, we started to feel a bit more comfortable with the situation and just gathered our thoughts and had breakfast in the hotel,” he said. “We decided just to get out of there. So we headed north and booked into a hotel where it was a lot quieter.”
As many flights in the region were cancelled due to the war, Carson resorted to booking a number of flights after his original flight with British Airways was cancelled. He managed to arrive at Belfast City Airport in Northern Ireland on Tuesday evening.
“We were looking at all options but we wanted to just focus on trying to get as close to home as possible,” he said. “When we were watching the map on the flight, we knew we were kind of out of the danger zone.”
“So after the first hour, we started to feel relief.”
