Runway damage by students 1968

[steh]

Whilst in central library today going through some old newspapers I came across by chance a clip from a 3rd June 1969 Echo that a student who'd caused damage to the runway during 1968's rag week had just paid off the last installment of his fine.

Apparently paint had been thrown on the runway during the rag week, causing it to be closed for a whole day. Time didnt allow for me to go through all the 1968 papers, but does anyone have any recollections?

[williamleece]

I remember it from years back. The students had painted an emblem on the runway as a jolly rag week jape, but the airport authorities were unamused as the new runway's anti-skid properties were compromised and the affected area had to be resurfaced.

[coaxingtin]

It was The Saint symbol that they painted on the threshold!

[viscount]

In brief I recall that the incident happened. As to when, well, I suspect that it was shortly before the runway 10/28 was officially opened (7th May 1966), or immediately after. From the detail on the first post, clearly my memory is off by a year or two. Might be wrong too, if I recall that it was a Manchester University Rag Week prank.

[Samba]

If my memory serves me well,we should have had an Eagle 707 that morning on a Heathrow divert and it went elsewhere because of the
runway damage.Can someone put me out of my misery on this one?.

[davel]

Yes, I remember it was a rag week stunt and they painted an image of "Fred Bogle" their mascot on the 27 end (28 then)
They had to pay for the damage which meant a lot of their rag week fund raising was in vain.

[calflier]

Nov 3, 2011 8:24:33 GMT 1 Samba said:

If my memory serves me well,we should have had an Eagle 707 that morning on a Heathrow divert and it went elsewhere because of the
runway damage.Can someone put me out of my misery on this one?.

Yes,I remember that,I also remember hearing about the EG707 being turned away,not sure how much of a confirmed divert it was,or at what point it was turned away,pity the students didnt go to Manchester that morning.

[coaxingtin]

So it was an image of Fred Bogle. My memory is adrift too!

[steh]

Thanks for all the replies

[phb]

The runway damage incident annoyed a lot of LPL spotters. The British Eagle 707 was inbound on a charter I think (not a diversion) and it diverted to MAN, may be after making a go-around. So we never had an Eagle 707 on the ground at LPL, although I think we had every other individual aircraft in the EG fleet.

PHB

[viscount]

I have gone through the MSAE 'Flypast' magazines for 1967 and 1968 with a tooth-comb looking for any mention of the incident at Liverpool, and come up with a blank. Not a great surprise as the editors of the day did not include information that everyone knew about, as no one would be interested in reading about it all over again!

I have looked through PHB's hand written visiting aircraft logs for any note of a go-around, again came up with a blank. Although the new runway was closed by the paint incident for a day, scheduled flights and light aircraft operations would have continued happily from the, then, still operational runways of the north airfield.

Approaching the problem from a different angle. As Boeing 707 visits to Manchester in 1968 were still worthy of note, with the new clue provided by PHB, I have now looked through the Manchester Movements section of the 1968 MSAE 'Flypast'. BEIA flew a short series of Boeing 707 charters in August and September. The only other BEIA B.707 visit noted, was on 3rd May 1968, with a visit by G-AVZZ a Boeing 707-138B. No further details included. However there were LHR diverts into Manchester on the 3rd and 4th to confuse matters.

Still not answered the date question with any certainty, it now requires a visit to the Reference Library (currently in the William Brown Street Museum) to have a look in the Daily Post and/or Liverpool Echo of the period on microfilm to confirm that 3rd May is that of the incident. About the right period of the year though for a rag-week stunt.