the plane carrying the player looked “dangerous”, according to the pilot – Liberation

More than three years after Emiliano Sala disappeared in a plane crash, an audio message from the pilot reinforces the idea of ​​a chaotic journey between Nantes and Cardiff from start to finish. David Ibbotson, 59, had been commissioned to transport the 28-year-old Argentinian footballer from Cardiff, where he had just been transferred for 17 million euros, to Nantes, so that he could say goodbye to his former teammates, then to bring him back to Wales.

In a voice message left to a pilot friend, which the BBC obtained and broadcast this Wednesday 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 it in a [avion] dangerous, Ibbotson then confided to a friend, Kevin Jones, the day before the accident. Usually, I have my life jacket between the seats, but tomorrow I will wear it, that’s for sure.

“This plane must return to the hangar”

More worryingly, David Ibbotson, who was actually not qualified to fly the small single-engine touring aircraft – a Piper PA-46 Malibu – says he heard “an explosion” in the plane in full flight during the outward journey. “I was stealing and then ‘boom’he tells his friend again. I was like, ‘what’s wrong?’ So I checked my settings, everything was fine and it was still flying, but it caught my eye.” After realizing that the left brake pedal was not working when he landed on the Nantes Atlantique runway, the pilot concluded: “This plane needs to go back to the hangar.”

Emiliano Sala had himself left a premonitory voice on Whatsapp during the second return flight. “I’m on a plane that looks like it’s about to fall apart. I’m exhausted, if all goes well, tomorrow I train with my new team. If in an hour and a half you don’t hear from me, I don’t know if they’ll send someone to pick me up because they’ll have a hard time finding me. I’m so afraid”said the player shortly before the tragedy.

According to the British Air Accidents Investigation Bureau’s final report, published in March 2020, the pilot, whose body was never found, “most likely” poisoned by carbon monoxide from the engine exhaust system. He reportedly 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. The organizer of the flight, David Henderson, was sentenced in November 2021 to eighteen months in prison for having hired a pilot he knew was not qualified and transported a passenger without valid authorization.