While reporting live on a League Two game, reporter Chris Price said that Rochdale "were making more holes in the Bradford defence than in a Spanish aircraft".
Listeners complained to BBC Radio Manchester, which has now been forced to issue an apology after Saturday's match report.
Freelance journalist Price, 25, from Rochdale, said he was trying to add some colour to his report but made a "horrible mistake" by comparing the match to the disaster at Barajas International airport in Madrid last week where at least 153 people were killed when a Spanair plane crashed.
"I honestly thought I was being descriptive. It wasn't meant to be funny; it was just a descriptive phrase. If people are offended by what I said, then of course I apologise but I never intended to offend anyone."
Price, who has covered football and rugby for the BBC for around a year, claimed that he only had minutes to put together his report and said he regretted the comment.
He said: "From the reaction there has been, if I could take it back then I would."
A spokeswoman for the BBC said: "This was an inappropriate remark and we would like to apologise to our listeners for any offence caused."
Mike Brookes, media officer for Rochdale Football Club, said: "I did that job for the BBC for the best part of 15 years and you have to try and be a bit quirky.
"But there is being different and then there is crass stupidity. It was unprofessional and stupid."
It is not the first time a commentator has found himself in trouble while live on air. Famously football pundit Ron Atkinson lost his job three years ago after a racist remark about Chelsea defender Marcel Desailly was broadcast round the world when he thought he was off air. He was later forced to resign from the channel and apologise for his remarks.
Veteran BBC commentator Julian Tutt caused a row at Wimbledon during the 1999 championships after he said that the young Australian player Jelena Dokic was staying in a 'cheap bordello', another name for a brothel.
In June Formula 1 commentator Martin Brundle found himself at the centre of an equality row after using the word 'pikey', slang for gipsy, in the middle of his broadcast.
In 2005 Rodney Marsh was sacked for making a joke about the Tsunami on a late-night phone-in programme on Sky Sports. He said that “David Beckham would never move to Newcastle because of all the trouble caused by the Toon Army in Asia”.
