Taken from Nanton Lancaster Society site. NLS - Visitor's Comments Oct 06, 2008 2:44pm My father was a navigator in 408 and he knew the pilot of the Ruhr Express. Over several beer the pilot confessed the plane was flown in with the landing gear up on purpose. The plane was poorly build and he didn't want to fly it again. It's demise was no accident. Nanton Lancaster Society's account of KB-700 - THE RUHR EXPRESS. Lancaster KB-700
I have come across some comments before about crews not liking a particular aircraft and stories about being glad to leave the stricken lemon in mid-air but nothing concrete springs to mind about a deliberate write-off. Wasn't The Ruhr Express a fairly high op Lanc? I would have thought an aircraft that was supposedly a lemon wouldn't have lasted very long i.e. not being able to keep up with the stream or reaching the desired height would have made for easy pickings. Reading the details of the crash, if there was a plan to deliberately write her off, you'd think the pilot would have done it a bit "easier". Intriguing all the same.
