Frankie: The Autobiography of Frankie Dettori. Frankie Dettori

       One I Knew I Was Going to Die

      Death came calling with terrifying suddenness on a bleak summer’s day in 2000. It happened as Ray Cochrane and I were taking off in a small plane from Newmarket racecourse on the sort of routine flight to the races that had been part of my daily schedule for the past fifteen years.

      One moment we were sitting side by side in the rear seats as our Piper Seneca bumped alarmingly along the grass runway on that wet and windy June morning. The next I knew with horrible certainty that I was about to die as our little plane, fatally damaged on take-off, struggled to reach a height of perhaps 100 feet before plunging towards Devil’s Dyke, a huge ancient bank and ditch that lies between the July track and the main course at Newmarket.

      White smoke was already streaming from a crippled engine, and there were the first signs of flickering flames as our doomed aircraft tilted crazily onto its right side, hampered from the lack of full power when we needed it most. In front of us our pilot Patrick Mackey was fighting manfully at the controls to keep us in the air long enough to avoid the dyke on our way down, but his task was impossible from the moment the right-wing engine propeller gouged into the ground just before lift-off.

      Not too many people in full health know beyond doubt that they have only a few seconds to live. Ray was icy calm as we waited for the impact that would end it all. Next to him I wasn’t so controlled.

      ‘We’re going to die mate, we’ve had it!’ I screamed.

      So many people have asked me what it was like to stare death in the face. It’s impossible to explain because it all seemed to happen so quickly. I was certain that it was all over, finished, as if somebody had pressed a button to end my life. I was also terrified that it was going to hurt like hell, but my main feeling was one of disappointment at the waste of it all, that I would never see my wife Catherine and little boy Leo again.

      The left wing tip was just about vertically above the other wing as we dived towards the bank and the ground rushed up to meet us. If we’d crashed nose first onto the dyke we would all have been killed instantly, no question—smashed to pieces like flies on a car windscreen.

      By some miracle Patrick nearly managed