Top Gear: Chris Harris 'warned BBC of safety concerns' before Freddie Flintoff crash

Speaking for the first time about what happened, Harris said he feared Flintoff had been killed, as ITV News' Amy Lewis reports

Former Top Gear presenter Chris Harris has claimed he warned the BBC of safety concerns before Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff's injury on the show in 2022.

Former England cricketer Flintoff was badly hurt in an accident during filming at Dunsfold Aerodrome in December 2022, leading to the BBC pausing the show "for the foreseeable future".

Speaking about the accident on the Joe Rogan podcast, Harris said: "I ran to the window, looked out, and he wasn't moving.

"So I thought he was dead. I assumed he was, then he moved."

Harris added: "Three months before the accident, I’d gone to the BBC and said, ‘Unless you change something, someone’s going to die on this show'.

“So I went to them, I went to the BBC, and I told them my concerns from what I’d seen as the most experienced driver on the show by a mile.

“I said, ‘If we carry on, at the very least, we’re going to have a serious injury, the very worst we have a fatality.'”

Harris also claimed he had asked to have a meeting with the show's head of health and safety.

He said: "What really killed me is that no one's ever really acknowledged the fact that I called it beforehand."

Harris continued: "I thought I'd done the right thing. I'm not very good at that. I normally just go with the flow but I saw this coming.

"I thought I did the right thing. I went to the BBC and I found out really that no one had taken me very seriously."

The BBC said it will not comment on Chris Harris' comments, but instead issued a statement from BBC Studios on the Health and Safety Review of Top Gear.

"The independent Health and production review of Top Gear, which looked at previous seasons, found that while BBC Studios had complied with the required BBC policies and industry best practice in making the show, there were important learnings which would need to be rigorously applied to future Top Gear UK productions," the statement read.

"The report included a number of recommendations to improve approaches to safety as Top Gear is a complex programme-making environment routinely navigating tight filming schedules and ambitious editorial expectations-challenges often experienced by long-running shows with an established on and off-screen team.

"Learnings included a detailed action plan involving changes in the way of working, such as increased clarity on roles and responsibilities and better communication between teams for any future Top Gear production."

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