Gatwick passengers fly into panic over prank Luton sign
AIR passengers have been left panicked after spotting a “Welcome to Luton” sign at Gatwick.
The giant white letters span 200ft and are visible on approach to the airport – about 70 miles south of Luton.
Abbey Desmond, from Great Dunmow, Essex, said she was initially “in a state of panic” upon seeing the sign.
She said: “Honestly, we were just looking out the window and saw it!
“We were about to land and in a state of panic until staff confirmed on landing we were actually at Gatwick.
“So I posted it to Twitter to give everyone else a laugh and it has blown up with everyone blaming RAF Luton [a parody account of the airbase].”
She later tweeted that it was a “great prank” after landing to find she was definitely at Gatwick. Her tweet has already had more than 20,000 likes and more than 1,000 retweets.
Jeremy Cliffe, a journalist, was also fooled by the sign, tweeting: “Nothing makes for a stress-free arrival in the UK quite like the words Welcome to Luton currently spelled out in giant white letters in a field under the final approach to Gatwick Airport.”
The stunt has been claimed by Max Fosh, a Youtuber, who told the BBC: “I am the pesky prankster that has written ‘Welcome to Luton’. It’s my job to make videos and my videos are all about doing silly things, to put a smile on people’s faces but just to be silly, I’m glad this stunt has gone down well.”
He said he was inspired by similar pranks that had been carried out in Australia and the United States.
Explaining how he set up the prank, Mr Fosh continued: “I went doorknocking on fields next to Heathrow and Gatwick and a lovely couple said,
‘It’s my job to make videos and my videos are all about doing silly things, to put a smile on people’s faces’
‘yeah we’ve got an 80m (262ft) long patch of land we don’t have any use for’. So I said ‘great can I get my tarpaulin out and start hammering pegs into the ground?’”
Placing the 14 massive letters, each 26ft by 10ft, cost him £4,000 as it has been “made to last”.
Mr Fosh has permission to have the letters there for six weeks.
The 27-year-old, who attended Harrow School, has more than 925,000 subscribers on Youtube.
Mr Fosh said he was sorry to anyone who was “seriously thrown” by the sign.