Airlift with St.Etienne fans, March 1977

[viscount]

THE ST.ETIENNE MATCH, MARCH 1977

Brian Jones

INTRODUCTION

Going through various collections of slides and prints, photos of that amazing day in March 1977 keep on cropping up taken by different photographers. Some repeat, however as the event is 41 years ago (wow!) and as I find it difficult to select the best, as they are now all digitised, I’m going to post the lot! It truly was quite an amazing day that deservedly has entered the folklore of Liverpool Airport as ‘the night of the Caravelles’. I’ve checked back and amazingly there is no previous nwan thread on this subject.

Even my being there to witness the event is a tale in its own right. That week I was away with a whole year school group on a ‘field studies’ week at Colomendy in North Wales. I had no car at the time and had got to Loggerheads on the bus with the kids anyhow. Having negotiated an evening ‘off’ in advance, I got a lift into Ruthin, picked up a hire car (an Austin Mini) from a local garage late afternoon and drove home to Liverpool, collecting aviation friends (hi Roy) from near Mold on the way. The following morning returned the hire car at breakfast time and was collected by a coach transporting our school group to the Cwm Idwal walk in Snowdonia for the day.

The ‘fly-in’ by airliners bringing St.Etienne FC supporters to Liverpool has been the subject of an article in a recent FoLA ‘09/27’ magazine, which drew heavily on an article compiled at the time by Tony Williams in the MAS ‘Flypast’ magazine of April 1977. My apologies to FoLA members who have already recently read this, but as I cannot improve on it, I’m also going to re-type the light-hearted, single side A4, article here and the table Tony produced relating to the aircraft used. On the table all the information is there, but columns re-arranged from the original.

ALLEZ LES VERTS !

Tony Williams

Football has always provided Speke with many charters and 1977 looks like breaking all the records for such flights. On March 1st the Liverpool team flew out to St. Etienne on Aer Lingus BAC.1-11 EI-ANE, charter flight number EI7950. Preceding this Laker BAC.1-11 G-AVYZ as GK3201 had flown out to Lyons with a group of supporters and another group followed the next morning on Monarch BAC.1-11 G-AWWZ as OM788, also to Lyons. All three returned in the early hours of the 3rd after the match in which Liverpool F.C. lost 1-0.

If you think that this is very puny compared to what follows, take into account that there were also some charters from Ringway with Liverpool supporters and many took the chance to use the convenient cross-Channel ferries.

The 16th of March will be remembered for a long time as the day when Speke got crowded out with airliners. This was probably the busiest day in the history of Speke with more airliners arriving than any day of diversions and over twice as many aircraft arriving than the previous largest airlift of fans (Ajax in November 1966). (Ed – the numbers though were to be exceeded during the 1979 Manchester strike diversion periods, but that is another story).

The Airport authorities were well organised and all the arrivals were dealt with very efficiently. Some aircraft parked in front of the terminal and were then towed away. Others were parked on the western apron or the runways and Corporation buses used to bring passengers to the terminal, much to their delight.

Halfway through the morning the cry went up “Caravelle on the grass!” – it was not eating the croquet hoops, but had inadvertently taxied off one of the apron fingers. It was righted as soon as possible. The light twin aircraft visiting were parked on the usually disused taxiway between the old runway 22 threshold and the 26 holding point. ATC did a fantastic job during the day, particularly during the peak arrival time after 1400. It was unusual to see one or two airliners turning onto finals as the one ahead was landing at Speke.

The rumour going around that the group that had arrived from Glasgow (on Minerve Caravelle F-BUZC) had been there since St Etienne played in the European Cup Final last May is not true – the party had flown Valence-Glasgow the previous day. The Aer Lingus flight (BAC.1-11 EI-ANG) brought a Swiss rugby team on their way to Ireland for a tour – they decided to watch a decent football team on the way. One party of supporters flew out from Speke (on Comet G-BDIT) who had not flown in, it is understood that they had travelled via other parts of England previous to watching the match.

The arrivals had been smooth – the departures were a different story. Members of the MAS Committee were disturbed from their ‘after meeting’ drink when the bar was taken over by the French. The sight outside was something to be seen with about 50 coaches lining both side of the roads between the terminals. Nearly 2,500 people thronged the terminal buildings – the shops and catering facilities did a roaring trade. The French did not seem too upset (many were tired and well lubricated and many had quite obviously been taking advantage of the favourable exchange rate and were well loaded down with clothing and LPs). There was no trouble at all and the fans were a credit to their team.

It took over an hour to get the departures properly organised, although some parties arranged for their coach to go direct to the aircraft which enabled a prompt departure. Many Corporation buses were used to take the supporters back to their out-parked aircraft from the terminal. The flights started to flow out after midnight, as the airport workers got into the swing of things. However there were still delays due to some aircraft being blocked in and due to technical reasons as one aircraft diverted back in after departure.

The table that follows gives a detailed view of the arrivals and departures.

All in all, the staff of the Airport should take a pat on the back for a superb operation, which will have boosted the Airport’s image considerably. Speke can handle such flights, and with the experience of more of the same, can handle them in a very efficient manner. Well done all! – especially Liverpool F.C., who made it 3-1.

Some Statistics. 2,603 passengers used these flights, this was over twice as many as any previous airlift of football supporters to Speke. There were 26 airliner loads of team and fans inbound (plus 7 twins and biz-jet), and 27 out. At one time on Wednesday night there were 99 aircraft on the ground at Speke, ranging from our preserved Fa.330 though GA singles and twins, based airliners upto a Boeing 727 in size. Out of this total there were 34 airliners of which 12 were Caravelles. 75 different aircraft flew at Speke during the 24 hours of Wednesday March 16th.

Next up F.C. Zurich, who Liverpool have already managed to crush 1-3 in Switzerland on 6th April, the home leg game is to be played on 20th April. Perhaps this good score will increase the travelling support for Zurich – or will it diminish it?? To find out what did happen next consult: derbosoft.proboards.com/thread/28359/liverpool-airport-aircraft-1962-1985

THE ST.ETIENNE SCOREBOARD

					  		
Reg	Type	        Airline	              Pax.     Flt Nos.	        Time in	Time out  from & to
							
F-BJTE	Caravelle III	Air France	       85/--   AF 7310/7310P	15/1007	15/1113	St.Etienne-Paris/CdG (posn)
G-ARIR	Viscount 708	Dan Air 	       44/--   DA 7465/7465P	15/1029	15/1131	St.Etienne(team)-Lydd (posn)
G-BDAT	BAC.111-518	Dan Air 	      112      DA 9473/9472	16/0858	17/0133	f&t Paris/Le Bourget
G-BBUV	Comet 4B	Dan Air 	      119      DA 9367/9368	16/0930	17/0245	f&t Dinard
G-BDIW	Comet 4C	Dan Air	              113      DA 9381/9382	16/0939	17/0324	f&t Montpellier
F-BVUY	Vanguard 952	Europe Air Service    137      EY 4155/4156	16/0943	17/0712	f&t St.Etienne
G-APMB	Comet 4B	Dan Air    	      115      DA 9569/9568	16/1001	17/0420	f&t St.Etienne
F-BPJU	Boeing 727-214	ACI, op by Air France 169      AF 7312/7313	16/1004	17/0050	f&t Lyon
G-AVJB	Viscount 815	Intra	               73      JY 786/787	16/1011	17/0336	f&t Dinard
HB-ICO	Caravelle 10R	SATA	               60      VS 666/667	16/1015	17/0128	f&t Marseilles
F-BHRE	Caravelle III	Air France             88      AF 8368/8369	16/1020	17/0011	Paris/Orly-Paris CdG
F-BUZC	Caravelle VIR	Minerve      	       99      MN 157/156	16/1158	17/1057	Glasgow-Valence
F-BUFH	Caravelle III	Aerotour	       97      QR 1364/1365	16/1236	17/0212	f&t Paris/Le Bourget
F-BUFU	Fokker F.27-200	TAT                    39      IJ 8930/8930	16/1239	17/1637	f&t St.Etienne
F-BYCB	Caravelle VIN	Catair                 92      QV 7902/7903	16/1310	17/0038	f&t Lille
OO-SDE	Boeing 737-229	Sobelair, op Sabena   108      OO 2251/2252	16/1342	17/0113	f&t Lille
G-ARIR	Viscount 708	Dan Air                49      DA 7456/7457	16/1429	17/0249	f&T Le Touquet
F-BUFF	Caravelle VIR	Catair                104      QV 7898/7899	16/1432	17/0929	f&t Paris/Le Bourget
F-BRGU	Caravelle VIN	Minerve               100      MN 096/097	16/1436	17/0203	f&t Limoges
F-BPVU	Caravelle VIN	Aerotour               99      QR 1366/1367	16/1440	17/0126	Paris/Le Bourget-Speke(Dvt back**)
F-BYCD	Caravelle VIN	Catair                 99      QV 7900/7901	16/1442	17/0123	f&t Paris/Le Bourget
F-BTOV	Vanguard 952	Europe Air Service     86      EY 4238/4239	16/1446	17/0149	f&t Paris/Le Bourget
F-BUFC	Caravelle VIR	Catair                 99      QV 7896/7897	16/1522	17/0014	f&t Paris/Le Bourget
G-AXJM	BAC.111-501	British Caledonian    113      BR 8379/8380	16/1540	17/0656	f&t Paris/CdG
F-BJTJ	Caravelle III	Air Charter Intl.(ACI) 99      SF 190/191	16/1638	16/2303	Paris/CdG-Nantes/Paris
EI-ANG	BAC.111-208	Aer Lingus             74      EI 7983/7191	16/1752	16/2327	Geneva-Dublin
G-BDIT	Comet 4C	Dan Air                --/119  DA 991T/9455	16/2131	17/0032	Luton (posn)-St.Etienne
G-ARBY	Viscount 708	Alidair                --/44   QA 503P/DA 7464	16/2205	16/2333	Teesside(posn)-St.Etienne (team)
F-BHRH	Caravelle III	Air France             --/85   AF 7311P/7311	16/2239	17/0035	Paris/Orly(posn)-St.Etienne
F-BVPU	Caravelle VIN	Aerotour              (99)     QR 1367/1367	17/0145	17/0333	(**Dvt back)Speke-Paris/Le Bourget
							
	GENERAL AVIATION & BIZ-JET						
							
F-BOSY	King Air A90		                7		        16/1042	16/2310	f&t Paris/Le Bourget
F-BPFH	Aztec 250C	Locafrance			                16/1152	16/2359	f&t St. Etienne
F-BTQN	Twin Bonanza				                        16/1216	17/0002	f&t St. Etienne
F-BRNR  Queen Air B80   Emeraude Air Transport                          16/1403 16/2351 f&t Lannion
F-BTYV	Lear Jet 24B	Uni Air			                        16/1459	17/0025	f&t Toulouse
F-BRNU	Aztec 250C	Uni Air	                5		        16/1503	16/2353	f&t Paris/Le Bourget
F-BUFI	King Air E90				                        16/1632	17/0313	f&t Toussus

A few thoughts and observations on the list from 40 years on. Firstly, how much smaller airliners were then. The largest involved (Boeing 727) had a similar capacity as the Airbus A.320 or Boeing 737-800 of today. I am surprised too, looking at the list how fans travelled from all around France, with very few operating actually from St.Etienne Airport. From the wide selection of airlines involved, only two, Air France and Aer Lingus, still operate today. Of the 8 airliner types, to my knowledge no Caravelles/Viscounts/BAC-111s/Comets/Vanguards remain flying, and the numbers of Boeing 737-200s/Friendships/Boeing 727s left flying are very limited - and then mostly as freighters. How aviation has moved on.

[viscount]

IMAGES OF SPEKE ON 16th MARCH 1977

This image, kindly supplied by Graham Ward of FoLA to me summarises the day in a single image of airliners parked at every available point around the terminal area of the airport.

This first batch of aircraft photos are those taken at the request of Airport Management by a professional photographer employed by the Liverpool City Engineers Dept. Likely there were once more, but some have been given away or used by printers over the years. The quality of camera and lens, film stock, use of tripod and a trained eye for a picture shows, they are all quality printed on near A4 photo-paper and now scanned onto digital with pixels reduced for viewing on a forum.









Off the roof of No.1 hangar provides a different angle for a shot of activity on the Western Apron. The others of this group are on the main apron.



/





Three of these shots have already been used on the ‘Liverpool Airport Accidents and Incidents’ thread. They are also very much in context here, so are repeated. The Air France Caravelle, on being parked on one of the ‘finger’ aprons over-ran the concrete, putting the nose wheel onto the grass. In the dry conditions, it did not sink in, so recovery of the aircraft onto the concrete was relatively straightforward and no damage was done. The only complication was that for unloading the passengers due to a slight nose down attitude, the rear air-stairs would not reach the apron, while apron stairs to the front door would not have been steady if used on the grass. The answer, a couple of pallets placed under the stairs to act as the final step, so passengers could unload onto the waiting fleet of ‘Corporation’ buses.







A few more from the same source, these in colour





To be a little different, a few of the aircraft seen after dark,


The second batch are mine. My best Caravelle shots were loaned out for a project and never returned. I went all-out to get a shot of every aircraft involved – I failed, but do have (poor) shots of the GA twins, Viscounts and BCal BAC-111 that others seem to have ignored. It was also well on the way to dark by the time I visited multiple viewing points and chatted to everyone.

First stop seems to have been the Bank’s Road fence, with a view of the aircraft parked on the Western Apron and the end of Runway 17.


















Then to the terminal, where the parking was chaotic, so I drove around while my passengers charged up to the balcony to take photos, taking my camera with them – only to mess up the exposure badly. From there around onto Speke Hall Avenue, somewhere part way to the Speke Hall gates to look back towards the former Starways hangars. By this time the evening light was fading and shutter speeds fell well below that desirable for a hand held 400mm lens.










Phil Duckett seems to have been down earlier in the day in bright sunny conditions, and his collection (by sheer co-incidence) includes many of the aircraft I didn’t get a good shot at!












These couple of shots come from Bob O’Brien, again clearly earlier in the day and with a quality strong telephoto lens.










Just a few from the transparencies in the Brian Billington collection. It would appear that he wangled airside access during the afternoon – or otherwise acquired these images from someone else who did!











If I find others, I’ll add them in. If you have shots or memories of the day St.Etienne flew in, please do add them to this thread. There is room for more photos too, the 40 images posted so far on this thread are not enough!

[andyh]

Absolutely fantastic - thank you for uploading this wonderful collection. I was only seven at the time and didn't get 'in' to aviation for a couple more years - if only I'd known!

[jetdragon]

Brilliant shots (and narrative) - thanks for showing these off. We're lucky that Liverpool FC have been so successful in European competition over the years thereby providing days like these!!

JD

[Airbus A346]

Having recently had my slides scanned from that famous day in March 1977, now seems like a good time to share them ......

G-AVJB by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

G-BDAT by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

G-APMB by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

G-BDIW by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

G-BBUV by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

F-BHRE by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

F-BPJU by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

F-BYCB by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

F-BYCD 2 by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

F-BUZC by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

F-BUFH by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

HB-ICO by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

F-BRGU by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

F-BTOV by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

F-BVUY by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

F-BUFU by MARTIN CHELL, on Flickr

[andyh]

Martin - thanks for adding some brilliant shots to an already outstanding thread.

[kuga59]

Wow, so many great shots.
Where and how did Dan Air have so many spare planes on the day?
When LFC fly to Kiev no airline could possibly find so many.
With over 16,000 tickets how many planes will be involved and where from?
What a day it’s going to be.
Allez, allez, allez!

[viscount]

Quite a number of questions in there, and a major bit of thread drift is imminent.

In general during March and April a number of 'holiday' airlines have aircraft not fully employed. Not just Dan Air in 1977, but Italian airlines in May 2018. The traditional start of the summer season is the first weekend in May, when schedules to holiday destinations and the summer inclusive tour season starts. While the actual start of the summer season frequencies has become less defined in recent times with a more staggered start, the basic fact is still there, scheduled and charter airlines both tend to have spare aeroplanes in March and April. However the end of May will be a bit more of a struggle.

There will a hunt all around Europe for available aircraft. British, French, Dutch, Polish, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Latvian, Portuguese, Spanish etc operators will all be combing their available aircraft, rearranging maintenance schedules and quite possibly even amending schedules to free up aircraft, particularly high capacity, wide-body types. It is a lucrative time, with a demand for that one weekend high from both England and Spain, the carriers can ask a premium and create a certain good profit. Not all flights will depart from LJLA, some will go from Manchester, a few from London airports with non-North West based fans - there might even be the odd one from Norway and Dublin too.

In the next week I'll create threads for both Athens and Istanbul, if someone else doesn't first, with lists of the aircraft and airlines involved and invite photographers to contribute. The lists will show just how far and wide the organisers of charters go to find aeroplanes. A number of aircraft will do two, or maybe even three rotations over several days before/after the game.

In the past it has been the policy of UEFA to select stadium for the finals which are served by two airports, to segregate the supporters and split the numbers trying to get loaded onto departing flights immediately after the game. I have no idea how many airports serve Kiev, and indeed if they can cope, although they presumably have told EUFA that they can! OK, a stretch to the bookcase, partly answers my own question my out of date ICAO airports code book states 3, 2 with IATA passenger designators: KBP the main International Airport is Kyiv/Boryspil (UKBB) and IEV Kyiv/Zhuliany (UKKK) is also listed; the other being aircraft production airfield Kyiv/Antonov (UKKM).

As has been stated the distant geographical location of Kiev will make overland travel a massive undertaking - which some supporters will do, likely flying into intermediate airports in SE Poland, Hungary, Romania, to finish their journey by local flights, coach or train. so demand to fly charter package with light, match ticket and hotels (if required) will be higher than usual - although many will be put off by seemingly staggeringly high prices. Remember too that while LFCs fan base is firmly on Merseyside and North Wales, they have a world wide following - and providing that they can get their hands on tickets not part of a travel package supporters will travel from all corners of the globe to Kiev.

[crumb]

Great thread. I was unfortunately not able to get to the airport on the day. I did however watch a great game, standing on the Kop.41 years, where has the time gone?

[kuga59]

Viscount

Thanks for a comprehensive answer.
Can’t wait to see the thread for Kiev 2018. History in the making.