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Comedy

23rd May 2022

This ‘Welcome to Luton’ prank sends Gatwick Airport arrivals into a frenzy

Kieran Galpin

"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.

The prank cost him £4k

Gatwick airport arrivals were left bewildered after a ‘Welcome to Luton’ sign appeared on the ground, courtesy of a prankster.

Passengers flying to Gatwick airport were in for a surprise upon learning they were actually in Luton, or maybe not. You see, Youtuber Max Fosh had laid out 14 individual tarpaulin letters that spelt out “Welcome to Luton”, despite being 60 miles south of Bedfordshire.

The 27-year-old content creator admitted to the prank on BBC Three‘s Counties Radio, where he told presenter Justin Dealey: “I am the pesky prankster that has written Welcome To Luton.”

https://twitter.com/JustinDealey/status/1527984879157362690

Fosh claimed that inspiration had been drawn from similar pranks in Australia and the US.

“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.

Further explaining how he executed his dastardly plan, Fosh said he went door-knocking in fields “next to Heathrow and Gatwick.” Luckily, “a lovely couple said, ‘yeah we’ve got a 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?’.”

Each of the 14 letters was 8x3m and cost him £4,000 as they were “made to last.”

Currently, Fosh has permission for the words to be displayed for six weeks, and has urged plane travellers to “have a look out your left window you should see it about 90 seconds before landing.”

Paramedic Abbey Desmond reacted to the sign on Twitter, where she wrote: “Flying in to Gatwick, just before landing this is what is out the left window… great prank, deffo at Gatwick.

“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,” she said.

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