Exclusive: Tragic skydive death for 'Hollyoaks Later'

Hollyoaks Later is to screen a soap first next month when one of the show's leading characters plunges to their death in a tragic parachute incident, Digital Spy can exclusively reveal.

Filming for the late-night E4 spinoff took place at Tatenhill airfield, Staffordshire, earlier this week where the production team used a storage area and a static plane for the scenes.

One of the four storyline strands within the five hour-long episodes sees Sarah Barnes (Loui Batley, left), Zoe Carpenter (Zoë Lister, below right) and Lydia Hart (Lydia Kelly, below left) embark on a boot camp and as part of the intense regime, the trio take to the skies to try out skydiving.

However, unbeknown to the girls, one of their parachutes has been sabotaged by a member of the group and when each pulls their ripcord cord, one fails to operate, sending them plummeting to the ground below.

The identity of the unfortunate girl is being kept a secret until the episode airs.

Producers have confirmed, though, that Batley and Lister are quitting the main Channel 4 show.

Mike Shelton, chief executive of Tatenhill airfield, told Burton Mail: "We had known that they would be coming about a week ago. It wasn't particularly high profile as our staff were not really involved in the filming. We had one staff member show them around the area, but they mainly filmed near our storage area, not very close to our operations."

He added: "They mainly filmed in the early evening after we had stopped flying so our work carried on as normal. All the filming they did was static so there was no flying involved. I believe they did use one plane to film but never flew in it."

This year's edition of Later is headed up by former Hollyoaks producer Bryan Kirkwood.

The five hour-long episodes of Hollyoaks Later are due to transmit on consecutive weekday nights on E4 from September 28.

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