Luton, Newspapers inbound 1998

[Agaricus bisporus]

A friend of mine worked in the cargo side of LTN in the late '90s and insists that a German reg twin prop Fokker used to bring in newspapers inc Mirror, Telegraph and Guardian before midnight.

It seems very odd to me but if it happened perhaps someone can explain why?

[Bigt]

Europrinter, Charleroi, Belgium prints numerous European editions of UK and other dailies. Luton may of been a `hub` for moving them further on throughout Europe

[TOWTEAMBASE]

Didn't the focker 50 that crashed in the Channel Islands a few years back depart LTN carrying newspapers ?

[PPRuNeUser0173]

Yes but it was a Channel Express F27. I think the reg was G-CHNL.

[TOWTEAMBASE]

I knew it was an F27.....can't think what made me say F50. Thanks GD. Was it a trim issue ?

[birdstrike]

Yes it was. It was a typical swiss-cheese situation, a diversion followed by a rushed departure with a member of ground crew rather than one of the pilots closing the door to help speed things up and therefore a pilot not seeing that the papers had been loaded too far aft.

As I recall it was the selection of land flap that caused the aircraft to pitch up. The crew recognized what had happened but were unable to recover the situation.

There but for the grace of god.......