The condition of the plane in which Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala died, which crashed in the English Channel on January 21, 2019, had worried its pilot before takeoff, who described it as “dangerous” in a message voice left with a friend. Pilot David Ibbotson, 59, had been assigned to transport the 28-year-old from Cardiff, where he had just been transferred for 17 million euros, to Nantes, so that he could say goodbye to his former teammates. FC Nantes, then to bring it back to Cardiff.
In a voice message left to a pilot friend, which the BBC obtained and broadcast in a podcast devoted to the case, David Ibbotson expresses doubts about the safety of the device, after the outward flight between Cardiff and Nantes. “I went to look for a footballer in Cardiff (…) They entrusted me with the task of recovering him in a dangerous (airplane), “said Ibbotson to his friend Kevin Jones, the day before the accident. “Usually I have my life jacket between the seats, but tomorrow I will (it) wear it, that’s for sure”.
Even more worrying, David Ibbotson, who was not actually qualified to fly the aircraft, explains that he heard “a detonation” in the plane in full flight, during this outward journey. “I was flying and then boom,” he told his friend. ” I said to myself : what’s wrong ? So I checked my settings, everything was fine and it was still flying, but it caught my eye. »
“This plane must return to the hangar,” concluded the pilot, after realizing that the left brake pedal was not working when he landed at Nantes Atlantique airport. According to the final report of the British Air Accidents Investigation Bureau, published in March 2020, the pilot, whose body was never found, was “probably” poisoned with carbon monoxide by the system. engine exhaust. He would have lost control of the aircraft during a maneuver carried out at too high a speed before the plane crashed into the sea at a speed of 270 miles per hour (435 km/h), leaving no hope of survival.
The body of the player, whose disappearance had moved the world of football, had been found in the carcass of the device more than two weeks after the accident, 67 meters deep. David Henderson, 67, who organized the flight, was sentenced in November 2021 to 18 months in prison for hiring a pilot he knew was unqualified and transporting a passenger without valid authorization.
