I wouldn't mind betting that it's not statistically unusual. It just depends on where they're from as to how much you hear about it. Unless there were any mysterious circumstances, à la this Malaysian one.
A plane crashes in Siberia, Congo or Paraguay with the loss of a hundred or so people...
Give over, it was hardly just the BBC. I had some SkyNews alert on my phone at pretty much exactly the same time, and it was all over Twitter. It's human nature- look how many separate threads we get on here every time there's some Albion news?