Olympic organisers airbrush HMS Belfast out of the Thames
 

Astonishing ... not just that they did it, but that they had the gall to try to blame a "simple mistake" in the "production process".

Nobody who has spent more than 10 seconds fiddling with Photoshop will believe that. Airbrushing something is a deliberate act that takes time, especially to do it properly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15673648
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2011/11/57.jpg

Re: Olympic organisers airbrush HMS Belfast out of the Thames
 

I would need to see two enlarged versions to be sure but that's not the only difference in those pictures. I think they removed a number of ships in that picture to make the water look cleaner and less cluttered. If you look at the full poster (Warning: Daily Bile link) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2059345/London-2012-Olympics-poster-HMS-Belfast-removed-image.html and look over the entire river there are far fewer ships than would be expected at any one time on the Thames. Especially further down the river.

The mistake could well have been also removing HMS Belfast by a designer being oblivious to the reaction it would provoke.

Re: Olympic organisers airbrush HMS Belfast out of the Thames
 

Actually I think a more likely explanation suggests itself, having now seen the landscape version of the poster:

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2011/11/56.jpg

Belfast would have been right behind the text on this version and I think someone has knocked it out to make the "T" in "festival" a bit clearer. The same photo may then have been used on all versions of the poster.

It's still not an excuse because at best it shows total ignorance of London's historic cityscape on the part of the ad agency responsible.