‘As I was walking towards Departures I heard two loud bangs’

Niall Doheny: ‘I flew to Brussels to drop off my kids with my parents-in-law for Easter’

This morning I landed in Brussels with my two kids, Jack (3) and Oscar (13 months), on Etihad flight EY57 from Abu Dhabi, where I work in the aviation industry. I flew to Brussels to drop off my kids with my parents-in-law for the Easter break. I was due to fly straight back to Abu Dhabi a few hours later, on the return EY58 flight.

I was met at Brussels Airport Arrivals Hall by my parents-in-law, and instead of going upstairs to Departures to check-in for the return trip, because I had plenty of time, I went to the airport car park to help put the kids’ luggage in the boot, and chat along the way with my in-laws.

As I was walking back towards the Departures Hall, I heard two loud bangs, about five seconds apart. I was about 100m away, but one level down. I saw two people running towards me, saying bombs had gone off. I could see other people running through the gaps in the car park wall. I ran back to the car, and we all left immediately.

I sensed an attack, and was worried that people like ourselves trying to escape the car park would be targets. But we left without any issues.

Now I am about 8km from Brussels Airport at my wife’s family’s apartment. Brussels is now on lock-down as reports of other explosions are coming in from elsewhere in the city. There is no public transport. Trains, metros and buses are all cancelled.

It was scary, but we remained calm. I will stay here until the authorities declare it is safe to continue my travel plans.

My kids are already outside Brussels in a town called Andenne, about an hour south-east of the capital with my wife’s parents. It’s where they had planned to go anyway for the Easter break, and where my in-laws live.

I’m still in Brussels myself but about to leave shortly, also for Andenne, and taking my wife’s grandmother with me. I will spend the night there, and attempt to travel back to Abu Dhabi tomorrow, flying from Dusseldorf across the border.

My kids will stay in Andenne for three weeks. My wife is due to fly up to Belgium from Abu Dhabi with our newborn in the coming days.

My thoughts are with all those directly affected by these terrible events.

Tony Scully: ‘I would normally have a cigarette right in front of that terminal’

Originally from Dún Laoghaire, I work at a Swedish regional development office 200 metres from the European Commission’s Berlaymont building, and 300 metres from Maalbeek Metro station.

I took the usual Metro line from Central to Maalbeek this morning, and walked out of Maalbeek station at about 8.10am. I had barely sat down at my desk when reports started coming in of the explosions at the airport. The first footage, taken by someone from the car park towards the departures terminal entrance, showed all the windows in the terminal had been blown out, with smoke billowing every which way. Flying between Stockholm and Brussels on a regular basis, I would normally be found having a cigarette right in front of that terminal, having just checked in at the desk right between the sites of the two explosions.

We are used to army and police presence around the Commission and the Parliament; but at that point in the morning, the sirens began and have not let up for more than a short period since. Police cars and wagons pulled up at strategic locations to cover the Commission buildings, and the helicopters began circling; it seemed a prime example of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted, but then another colleague arrived to tell me that Maalbeek station had been hit by another bomb.

A quick stroll revealed the police had completely sealed up the district, all along Wetstraat (between the Arts-Loi station and the Commission), one of the main thorooughfares into and out of the city.

The rest of the day has been spent trying to account for the wherabouts of all our colleagues (luckily we were all elsewhere at the time), and keeping ourselves informed of which areas of the city were off-limits. This list of secured streets increased as more suspect packages were found at the campus in Etterbeek, and in the park across the road from the Royal Palace. The list of dead and injured mounted as the day went on.

It seems hard to find anything of comfort in all of this; but once again the Belgians rally and astound. Last time it was the Twitter cats. This time, newly-created Twitter sites such as #OpenHouse and #ikwilhelpen started filling with offers from locals to put stranded commuters up in their flats or provide lifts out of the city. I can get back to my wife this evening thanks to a new friend I haven't met yet.

The feeling after the Paris attacks was grim; this is grimmer, close to home, to the people I shared my Metro ride with this morning and with whom I could have shared worse if I had taken a later train. The soldiers on the streets will be there for a while yet; but in the view from my office window this afternoon, life appears to go on and the Belgians will have weathered another awful storm. I’ll happily weather it with them.