The recent death of star basketballer Kobe Bryant is an example, however, of how susceptible successful sportspeople are to the same types of fates. The similarity is due, for the most part, simply to the law of averages - they, also, need to travel a great deal.

Still, we're constantly told how safe air travel is and are constantly being reassured by the statistics. Last year is reported to have had only 287 air traffic fatalities worldwide - a miniscule number compared to how many people died in cars.

But, it's important to note, this figure of reassurance applies only to commercial airlines. When you start buggering about with private planes and helicopters, as the rich and famous tend to do, then your odds of plummeting to a grisly end increase substantially.

Actually, the odds increase by 271 times (that is, you're 271 times more likely to cark it if you fly privately rather than commercial) which is getting you quite a bit closer, in ballpark terms, to the risk of jumping in the car. This is why famous people are so often dropping from the sky.

It was 1966 and golfer Tony Lema had recently beaten Arnold Palmer in a play-off for the Cleveland Open and won the British Open by five shots over Jack Nicklaus. He'd next taken out the 'World Series of Golf' earning him $50,000, then the biggest payoff in golf.

Only hours after the finish of the '66 PGA, Lema and his wife chartered a plane to Chicago. After nearly four hours the plane ran out of fuel. It went down. Incredibly it went down into a nine-hole municipal golf course and crashed directly into the water hazard! Yes - Tony Lema, at the top of his game, died in a plane that crashed into a water hazard. Perhaps the ultimate in golfing ironies.

Rocky Marciano is the only heavyweight champion to have finished his career undefeated. The day before his 46th birthday Marciano, keen to get home for his party, boarded a private plane in Chicago. The pilot, inexperienced and flying in poor conditions, ran out of fuel (a theme here?) and in attempting an emergency landing hit the only oak tree in a large pasture two kilometres short of the airport.

Marciano, along with everybody else on the plane died instantly on impact.

Mind you, sportspeople are not necessarily completely safe on the bigger commercial flights either.

On the 14th of March, 1980, there was a conference on 'improvements in air travel safety' occurring at Okecie Airport in Warsaw. While the conference was in progress, Flight 007, coming in from Kennedy Internationa, had been experiencing mechanical difficulties and was forced to abort its landing. In the process of circling for another go the plane suddenly plunged, crashing less than a kilometre from the airport (and the conference). The aircraft contained the entire US amateur boxing team.

And, speaking of having 'another go,' here's one. February 1958 - Flight 609, containing the Manchester United football team, as well as assorted journalists and supporters, was sitting on the runway at Munich airport. It had just abandoned two take-off attempts due to mechanical inconsistencies. They'd both been serious attempts, called off in the latest possible stages. The passengers, having been advised that they'd more than likely be staying in Munich, disembarked and headed into the airport lounge as snow began falling heavily.

Completely unexpectedly, the pilot decided to have another crack at it. He called them back to the plane ...

On its third attempt the plane again failed to achieve lift-off but, due to the level of the pilot's commitment this time to attaining the necessary speed, it was unable to stop. It careered through the fence at the end of the runway, across a road and into a house with a neighbouring hut which contained a truck, which exploded.

Twenty three fatalities, every one of whose last thought must certainly have been, 'I bloody knew it!'

And then there's the infamous Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 containing the Old Christians Rugby Union team. That plane crashed in the Andes. Incredibly 28 people survived, left on a glacier, isolated and undiscovered. They quickly ran out of what meagre supplies they had and ... well, with those who'd been killed being preserved so well in what amounted to a freezer outside ...

We all know how that one ended ...