Frank Gardner
@FrankRGardner
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BBC Security Correspondent. Author of Invasion, Blood & Sand, Outbreak, Crisis, Ultimatum, Arabic grad. BTO Pres.
London, United Kingdom
Joined November 2010
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It’s happened again. Stuck on an empty plane at Heathrow airport long after everyone else is off - ‘no staff to get my wheelchair off the plane’. I am SO disappointed with
@HeathrowAirport
as disabled passengers are once again apparently the lowest priority.
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FFS not again! Just back from exhausting week covering NATO summit in Madrid and quelle surprise, Im still stuck on the plane at Gatwick. Iberia crew are gone and a new crew has come onboard. Just WHY are UK airports so consistently crap at getting disabled people off planes ?
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Brilliant. Love this. As spotted by a friend going thru Abu Dhabi airport:
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OK so I’m going to wade into this issue one more time (of passengers like me left waiting on empty planes). I fully support the suggestion that only penalties and fines will change this. Repeated apologies for poor service just don’t cut it.
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Slightly embarrassed by all the attention this Heathrow stranded-on-a-plane thing has got but hey, if we don’t make a fuss I suspect nothing will change.
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Freedom. Years after being shot and partly paralysed in the legs, I still get to ski! This is how:
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I am so utterly sick of
@HeathrowAirport
ground staff 'losing' my wheelchair. Over 70 mins after landing back from Ethiopia I'm still stuck on an empty plane while they try to find it Just when is UK's premier airport going to stop treating disabled passengers this way?
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June 6 is a bittersweet day for me. It’s my ‘Alive Day’, surviving multiple gunshot wounds in Riyadh 15 yrs ago but also remembering my wonderful cameraman Simon Cumbers who died in that attack.
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Passed through Dubai and Bangkok airports in last 24 hours and guess what, the transfers off the plane were absolutely faultless, as they always are there. Maybe they could give UK airports some guidance?
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Off the plane now - only a 20 minute delay which is mild - but ground handlers said ‘nobody told us there was a disabled passenger onboard’. Airline, Iberia, insist they did. All in all, so tedious and boring!
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Heavens. We’ve just had an email at work from someone in...Afghanistan - saying ‘hope all is ok there in UK with Brexit, wishing u luck’.!
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OK, not the greatest photo but this is the incredibly rare Black-veined White butterfly that has been officially extinct in Britain for 90 years. This week they’ve mysteriously appeared on the edge of London and no one knows where they’ve come from.
@savebutterflies
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Setting off today for a real bucket list trip I’ve always wanted to do: ANTARCTICA. Bit of a challenge with a wheelchair and it takes a while to get there, but I’ll be posting updates. So I’ll be off the News grid for the rest of Feb while we get close to penguins and orcas!
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OK, I’m just going to put this out there. What’s going on in the Middle East is hideous. So many innocent lives lost. Here in UK I can see what should be reasoned debate turning into ruined friendships. We all of us need to listen and try to understand, even if we don’t agree.
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Well done
@Gatwick_Airport
Absolutely seamless transfer off the aircraft today, wheelchair brought up to door of plane, no delays. Textbook. Thanks.
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Wheelchair waterskiing! (me on the right) Easier than I thought!
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Thanks all of you for your kind words. This is an incredibly minor whinge compared to the horrors people hv endured in Ukraine. But it’s the principle of disabled people so often getting crap treatment thats so objectionable. £ just needs to go where its needed.
@HeathrowAirport
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Madness. Today the fit, able, 20-sth doormen at a listed building in SW1 refused to lift my wheelchair up the steps ‘for health & safety reasons’. So 2 kind people in their 60s did it instead. This is bonkers.
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Congratulations to Sir Terry Waite on receiving his KCMG from King Charles today. Held hostage for 5 years in Lebanon and a man with so much humanity.
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Re the awful story of the amputee boy stranded for hours at
@Gatwick_Airport
without his
#wheelchair
what airports often fail to appreciate is that our wheelchairs are NOT baggage, they are our legs, our sole means of getting around.
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Just spent (hopefully) 1 of most constructive hrs of my life!
@HeathrowAirport
CEO took notes as we went thru disabled passengers' probs at airports. We covered hi-lift failing to turn up, wchairs getting taken off into terminal + more thoughtful attitudes needed twds disabled.
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Yay! Just completed the Grand Slalom course here in Switzerland in 2 mins 22 secs - in a sitski. Such a buzz when your legs don’t work.
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Odd that I can travel round the Middle East and elsewhere without a hitch. Yet time and again
@HeathrowAirport
loses my wheelchair on arrival. Now been on an empty plane 1.5 hours after landing. Believe me, I'm as bored of writing this as you are of reading it.
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I am in total solidarity with Justin Levene, the paraplegic guy shown on BBC 6pm news who refused to be strapped into a wheelchair he couldn’t push at Luton airport. This is about independence + personal dignity as well as simple mobility.
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An unforgettable moment: being awarded my OBE from
#HMQueenElizabethII
in 2005 for services to journalism, the year I came out of hospital. “How very gallant of you to stand” she said. I’ll always remember that.
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Just feeling so lucky to be down here in the largest wilderness on Earth. Every day brings some new adventure!
#Antarctica
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Reports now indicate that
#Ukraine
is being invaded from all 3 sides: north, south and east. NATO has called an emergency meeting. -
#UkraineRussie
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So here’s a little infection-control tip a nurse once gave me in hospital. “This might save your life one day” she said. “Always press lift buttons with your knuckle and not your fingertips, you don’t touch food with your knuckles”.
#CoronaOutbreak
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@HeathrowAirport
Apology not accepted. You do this nearly every time. You 'create a case number' then it happens again the next time. This casual disregard for disabled passengers is a disgrace to British airports. LHR2 flight ET700 from Addis Ababa.
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Travelling by train through a darkened, snowbound Finland and my God this is easy with a wheelchair. No pre-booking assistance needed, you just roll right onto the train from the platform with everyone else. Simples.
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Now off plane and in the terminal while I’m guessing all other passengers are on their way home.
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Why has
@BorisJohnson
again ruled out a No Fly Zone over
#Ukraine
? Simple answer: because that would mean shooting down Russian aircraft and then we are at war with
#Russia
. Hence NATO ruling that out as well as sending troops.
#UkraineRussiaWar
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Have to say, if I were
#Prigozhin
, the mutinous Wagner boss now exiled to Belarus, I’d be staying well clear of upper floor windows or generous cups of tea. Deal or no deal, Putin is not going to forgive him for his ‘treachery and betrayal’.
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The CEO of
@HeathrowAirport
has kindly offered to meet me today to try to resolve some of the probs disabled passengers have when they pass thru that airport. It's a start.
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Ushuaia. The southernmost inhabited town in the world. It can be pouring with rain here, then snowing, then the sun comes out and the backdrop looks like this:
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I’m hard pushed to remember a day like today in the BBC newsroom where the news from
#Russia
is moving so fast. Is it a mutiny? A coup? Where will the Russian Army stand? Will the FSB stay loyal to Putin? What will it mean for the war in Ukraine? We’ll try to provide answers…!
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After today’s rain: Robin taking a bath in a puddle of rainwater
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What an experience: watching humpback whales feeding at dusk yesterday as the Antarctic light fades over the icebergs:
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The Survivors Lunch today: all 4 of us broadcasters have survived catastrophic illness or injury:
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Country pub down a village lane, a clear starlit night, temperature dropping, scent of woodsmoke in the air. Autumn in Britain. Love it.
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Huge sense of togetherness here in the Queue for the Accessible Queue for the lying in state, outside Tate Britain. Strangers chatting to strangers, novels being read in the sun, soldiers and sailors handing out water bottles.
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Thrilled to announce I am now officially the new President of
@_BTO
, the British Trust for Ornithology, the volunteer-based org that does the science behind birdwatching, filling the dauntingly big shoes of my predecessor
@ChrisGPackham
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One of my fondest memories of
#georgealagiah
was when he came to see me in hospital back in 2004. He brought me his book ‘A Passage to Africa’ and we talked for hours about the continent he loved and spent so much of his career covering. A true journalist and a great author.
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Blatant targeting of journalists by US policemen as they report on the current wave of US protests. A familiar sight in dictatorships, depressing to see it in a western democracy.
@pressfreedom
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Huge respect for my friend
@Tobias_Ellwood
MP who tried to save the stabbed policeman, and staunch blood from multiple stab wounds. In vain.
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So very sad that our friend and colleague
@georgealagiah
has passed away. One of the kindest, most thoughtful people in his profession and a great journalist and author. RIP George.
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Thanks everyone for all your lovely comments on our BBC2 documentary ‘Being Frank’ last night. Over 2 million of you watched it, and it was not easy in parts!
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Liberating, when your legs are part paralysed, to still get to go quad-biking with daughter on a North African beach today:
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Last light in the Alps. No filter, the colours here are spectacular.
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There’s always something rather special about those first, feathery leaves in early spring:
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Important to remember: most of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi’s victims were not westerners, they were Muslims from Syria and Iraq.
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Skiing with (mostly) your upper body - on the Swiss ski slopes last weekend. Filming by Olivier Jacobs
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Thank you
@HeathrowAirport
for a smooth and efficient transfer off the plane this evening. Ground staff excellent esp Dylan.
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Sea kayaking past icebergs in Antarctica. We paddled 7km along the coast so a bit of a workout for the arms!
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Dawn just south of Cape Horn and there are albatrosses wheeling in the sky all around our ship.
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It is absolutely paramount that the West/NATO stays out of this Russian infighting - and is seen to stay out. Hardliners in Moscow would like nothing more than to blame this on some foreign plot and then push for retaliation.
#Russia
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“Welcome to
#Antarctica
”. Landing by zodiac on a remote island to visit a colony of Gentoo penguins:
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I know this might sound like a bit of a cliche but filing past the Lying in State in a hushed Westminster Hall yesterday you really did feel like a part of history.
#QueueForTheQueen
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Back to civilisation after crossing these extremely steep jungle ravines on horseback with the expedition, something I never thought I could do after my injuries!
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V impressive response from
@metpoliceuk
and ambulance service to
#LondonAttacks
Armed police on scene in 8 minutes.
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Up on the bridge for iceberg watch as the ship’s officers steered a careful passage through a narrow channel here in
#Antarctica
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Appalled to read of the disabled passenger who has fallen to his death at
#gatwickairport
while waiting to be disembarked. UK airports do seem to be finding it particularly challenging to cope with disabled passengers. Other countries less so.
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Incredible. Meeting two WW2 veterans, aged 99 and 101, of RAF Bomber Command tonight at the launch of John Nichol’s new book ‘Eject! Eject!’. A lot of people here raising glasses to the Martin Baker ejector seat that saved their lives.
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Life after Injury: a sneak preview of our upcoming film ‘Being Frank’ on BBC2 this Thurs at 9pm -
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Tremendous grinding and crunching noise as the reinforced hill of our ship ploughs through some ice and we travel further south along the Antarctic coast.
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Phew. All our Covid tests have come back negative so we’re cleared to embark the ship tomorrow to
#Antarctica
!
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Morning in the Swiss Alps. Deep, sonorous church bells from down in the valley, sun sparkling on snow and from somewhere the smell of warm bread.
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Mornings in Buenos Aires: just watched a hummingbird darting around a flowering tree outside the window. What better way to start your Sunday!
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Another Antarctic ice kayaking pic from earlier this week. We are now churning back through the heaving Drake Passage towards South America.
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#Antarctica
Update No.4: we’ve arrived in Patagonia and gone from 36C in Buenos Aires to the freezing sleet of the Tierra del Fuego. Just seen our first albatrosses out in the bay.
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Ok so this is so absurd it's actually funny. 30 mins after landing at
@HeathrowAirport
I'm once again stuck on empty plane. Hi-lift crew have managed to lock themselves inside their hydraulic cabin and can't get out! BA crew being brilliant.
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Skiing is a bit like a language: even if you haven’t used it for 3 years it seems to come back!
#adaptiveskiing
@dsuksnowsport
#MySwitzerland
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Just passed Battersea Power Station, showing its affiliation tonight
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Passing Cape Horn, graveyard of many a ship and her crew:
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Honouring my grandfather tmoro, who fought on the Somme. We cannot imagine what they went through.
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Delighted to say I've just had a hassle-free journey from LA back to LHR on BA, wheelchair and baggage intact, no probs at Heathrow.
@HeathrowAirport
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#Huawei
senior UK execs: ‘We are free to voice our own views’. Parliament Science Cmtee Chairman: ‘So what’s your view on the new Security Law in Hong Kong’. Huawei: ‘It wouldn’t be appropriate for us to comment’.
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Conquering fears: managed a black run in deep snow in a sitski today thanks to a great guide:
@konradbartelski
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Proud that my dad landed in Normandy in 1944 and took part in the advance all the way up thru France, Belgium, Holland. It shaped the rest of his life.
#Normandy
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Exactly 25 years ago today I took a big career risk. We landed in Dubai where I set myself up as the BBC’s freelance Gulf stringer. No office, no guarantee of income, no guarantee it would even work out. Carpe diem. I’ve never regretted it!
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