As a presenter of TV show A Place in The Sun for seven years, air travel was part of the job for Scarlette Douglas.
But the star, 38, told the Daily Mail that she ‘hates flying’ for a heartbreaking reason.
Scarlette revealed she was meant to be on a doomed Air France flight which tragically crashed and killed more than 200 people – including her close friend.
‘I lost a really good friend of mine in the Air France crash from Brazil to France,’ she said at the Taste of London Food Festival opening party in Regent’s Park.
‘The scary thing was I was supposed to be on that flight. She had booked it.’
Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic on June 1, 2009, killing 228 people.
Scarlette Douglas (pictured in June 2024) revealed she was meant to be on a doomed Air France flight which tragically crashed and killed more than 200 people – including her friend
Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic on June 1, 2009, killing 228 people
Scarlette couldn’t take the flight because of a job she had in Hollywood.
I used to be a dancer, I was in the Gulliver’s Travels movie with Jack Black – it meant I couldn’t go,’ Scarlette explained, referring to the 2010 comedy.
‘I felt awful, when I heard the news on the radio, I remember hoping it wasn’t that flight.’
The fatal crash occurred when three pilots panicked and failed to deal with faulty equipment during a storm.
A 2023 ruling acquitted Air France and Airbus of ‘involuntary manslaughter’ following the crash.
During the investigation, it emerged that two of the pilots fell asleep, one after the other, when they were supposed to be in charge of the plane.
Flight recordings from the cockpit of the flight revealed the pilots’ last conversation before the aeroplane crashed.
One pilot said: ‘We’ve lost our speeds. I don’t know what’s happening.’
The automatic pilot disconnected, leaving the three pilots on board in charge.
Scarlette (pictured earlier this month) couldn’t take the flight because of a job she had in Hollywood, but now ‘hates flying’ due to the tragedy
Among the victims were Graham Gardner, a 52-year-old oil worker from Gourock, Renfrewshire, and Arthur Coakley, 61, an engineer from Whitby in North Yorkshire.
Eleven-year-old Alexander Bjoroy, a boarder at Clifton College in Bristol, also died in the crash, along with PR executive Neil Warrior, who was 48.
Eithne Walls, 29, had been working at the Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin and was on a trip to Brazil with friends.
One couple on the flight, a young doctor and lawyer, had married only the day before. After a wedding reception in a Rio nightclub, they had boarded the plane to begin their honeymoon.
In 2010, a BBC2 documentary, Lost: The Mystery Of Flight 447, brought together leading aviation experts to conduct a forensic investigation into the crash.
Scarlette, whose new property show, Can’t Sell Must Sell, launches on Channel 4 next month, also recoiled at the horror of last week’s ‘horrendous’ Gatwick-bound Air India Flight 171 crash in Ahmedabad.
The crash killed all but one of the 242 passengers and crew on board and dozens more on the ground.
Scarlette was joined by her mother Beverly, and father, Joe, at a food festival as she spoke to the Mail and revealed despite her fears, she still plans to fly with them to Jamaica on holiday this summer.
‘I’m so scared of flying – Any time I take off I say my prayer and pray that I make it,’ she explained.
Scarlette also recoiled at the horror of last week’s ‘horrendous’ Gatwick-bound A ir India Flight 171 crash in Ahmedabad which killed all but one of the 242 passengers and crew on board
