After a journey from Cardiff to Nantes, the pilot of the airplane in which football player Emiliano Sala perished remarked to a friend that the plane was “shaky.”
When the jet crashed in the Channel near Guernsey, the 28-year-old player was en route from Nantes, France, to Cardiff, Wales, to join then-Premier League team Cardiff City.
David Ibbotson, his 59-year-old pilot, was also slain. Ibbotson’s worries were captured on the Transfer: The Emiliano Sala Story podcast by the BBC.
Ibbotson may be heard on the podcast stating in a voicemail to his friend Kevin Jones, “I picked up a footballer from Cardiff. He was recently acquired from Nantes for approximately £20 million or such.
“They entrusted me with picking him up in a shady area” (aircraft). Normally, I keep my lifejacket between my seats, but I will use it tomorrow.”
A coroner’s inquest in March determined that the Argentinian-born striker was unconscious when he succumbed to head and chest injuries on the evening of 21 January 2019 after being poisoned by fumes from the Piper Malibu’s defective exhaust.
As an amateur pilot, Ibbotson was not permitted to transport passengers or fly at night. His body has never been discovered.
He reported to Jones that he heard a loud noise on the outbound aircraft before leaving Nantes. “I’m in the middle of the channel and ‘bang,'” the pilot stated on the recording.
“I’m flying along when suddenly ‘bang! I wondered, “What’s wrong?” So I put everything forward and double-checked my settings; everything was in order and the plane was still in the air, but it caught your attention.”
He stated, “Sometimes in Malibu, you’ll encounter a mist. It can be felt very, very down within the airframe.”
“This aircraft must return to the hangar,” he said after realizing the left brake pedal was inoperable upon landing at Nantes Atlantique airport.
David Henderson, a 67-year-old pilot, and businessman managed the single-engine aircraft for its owner, arranging flights, pilots, and maintenance, while not being the officially registered operator.
Ibbotson reported the loud noise between Cardiff and Nantes to Henderson, but when the plane landed in France, an engineer was not dispatched to investigate.
Ibbotson was also prohibited from flying the Piper Malibu by the aircraft’s owner following two airspace violations months earlier, but Henderson authorized him to fly. Henderson kept no business records, invoices, or information on the qualifications of his pilots.
Willie McKay, a sports agent who arranged the bouts and assisted his son Mark’s firm in representing Nantes in the transfer, was a longtime client of Henderson. He denied knowingly arranging “grey” flights with the businessman, who lacked an air operator’s certificate allowing him to transport paying customers.
Henderson was sentenced to 18 months in prison last year for jeopardizing the safety of an aircraft. He also admitted to attempting to arrange a flight without permission or authorization from a passenger.
