Another AN12 has just turned up at Liverpool from Luxembourg. I knew what it was as soon as I heard it flying over my house in North Staffs.
I always remember watching the remains of one falling out of the sky in the form of Aluminium Oxide as we sat on the flight deck of a DHL75 at Leipzig after one caught fire on start up. Whilst the fire fighters dealt with the blaze the airfield was shut. The resulting delay was around one hour which meant I was one hour later getting to bed that morning in which ever European City I ended up in.
Fortunately all the crew escaped uninjured, the same could not be said for it's cargo of thousands of day old chicks.
When I was at DHL we would sometimes fly what was described as explosives on the cargo manifest from Gothenburg to Leipzig, apparently they were actually the devices that made the air bags in cars inflate.