JULY 10, 2000

David Coulthard's air crash

THE Sunday People newspaper in London has reported that David Coulthard's air crash in May may not have been an accident and has linked the crash at Lyons-Satolas airport - in which the two pilots of the jet were killed - to a similar one involving the jockey Frank Dettori a few weeks later. The Sunday People's front page story suggested that the two crashes may have been related to illegal gambling syndicates in the Far East and said that the allegations that the planes were sabotaged had been made to police by underworld sources. This may all sound far-fetched - and traditionally the Sunday People is not the most reliable of sources - but it is worth reporting that we heard similar stories from very reliable non-motor racing sources in Asia just days after Coulthard's accident but decided not to publish them as they seemed outrageous at the time.

According to The Sunday People, the allegations are now being investigated by the Organized Crime Squad of the Metropolitan Police on the grounds that gambling syndicates have tried disrupting big sporting events before now. In 1998 four men were jailed in Britain for trying to cause the cancellation of an important soccer match by fusing the floodlights at the ground where it was being played.