Daily Star pulled from airports over volcano ash splash

Copies of yesterday's Daily Star were removed from airport newsagent shelves over fears that its splash, headlined "Terror as plane hits ash cloud" with an image of a 747 with engines ablaze, could cause panic among travellers.

Richard Desmond's red top was removed from shops at Gatwick and Manchester airports after today's edition was published, with a front-page story claiming to feature "dramatic pictures as jets get OK to defy volcano".

However, the image used in the splash was taken from a TV reconstruction of an incident 28 years ago in which a BA 747's engines were knocked out by a volcanic ash cloud.



Gatwick airport's director of communications, Andrew McCallum, said: "We thought it was inappropriate at this point in time after six days of disruption and as people were anxious to get to their holiday destination or to return home to have these sort of computer-generated images on the front page.

"We had a discussion with other airports having seen the Daily Star's front page today and decided to remove it. It was in our view not appropriate."

Gatwick bosses also asked a Daily Star reporter and photographer to leave the premises. The airport said it was unrelated to the paper's front-page story and was part of its management of media coverage of the travel disruption story.