West Ham United owners David Gold and David Sullivan were due to be collected by a plane yesterday which crashed killing its two pilots.

The Sunday Mirror says they were set to fly to the Premier League side's game at Sunderland.

Sullivan said he narrowly avoided catching the fatal flight with co-chairman, Gold.

He said: “The aviation company, London Executive Aviation, have two planes and we have flown on that particular plane about 50 times.

“It was fifty fifty 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.

“I am quite shocked to think David (Gold) and I could have got on that plane - it was the toss of a coin.

“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.

“We used that airline all the time and they are really excellent. The planes are twin engine so if one engine failed it could still fly so it's a mystery why it crashed. The pilots were very experienced guys."

Police said the eight-seat Beechcraft King Air 200 went down in a field in Chigwell, Essex, just after take-off at 10.20am and burst into flames.