West Ham bosses Sullivan and Gold lucky not to be on crashed plane
Sunday 4 October 2015 18:20, UK
West Ham United co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold have said they were fortunate not to be on the light aircraft which crashed in Essex on Saturday, killing the two crew.
Sullivan and Gold had been due to fly from Stapleford Airport to the north east where their team were playing Sunderland in a Premier League fixture.
There were two planes available to them - one was the Beechcraft King Air 200 turboprop aircraft which came down in a field in Chigwell shortly before 10.20am.
Sullivan said: "The aviation company, London Executive Aviation (LEA), have two planes and we have flown on that particular plane about 50 times.
"It was 50/50 whether we got on the plane that crashed or the other one. It's a real shock. My heart goes out to the families of the pilots, it's very, very sad.
"When we arrived at the airport it was already closed off because of the crash and we had to divert to Stansted to get a flight to Newcastle to get to the Sunderland game. We were a bit late for the match."
He added: "We used that airline all the time and they are really excellent."
Investigations are continuing into why the aircraft crashed only moments after take-off.
Both people on board were described by LEA as "highly-experienced professional pilots".
