More than three years after the death of Emilian Hall, the 28-year-old Argentine player who had been acquired by Cardiff City of the Premier League and died in a plane crash on his way to Wales, the BBC gained exclusive access to a revealing phone call made by the pilot involved in the tragedy.
David Ibbotson (59) had a telephone conversation with a friend in which he laid bare the technical difficulties the aircraft was experiencing. Prior to the dialogue, the man flew to Nantes, France, the city where Sala lived and where he worked as a footballer until then.
After landing at Atlantique Airport, Ibbotson contacted the pilot Kevin Jones. In the middle of the conversation, he admitted to having heard “a bang” while he was flying towards the French nation. He also complained of feeling a “very low, dense fog” inside the 35-year-old Piper Malibu plane.
“I was in the middle of the Canal [de la Mancha] and I heard a ‘bang’. She didn’t know what was happening. I took the opportunity to review everything, I checked my parameters. Since everything was fine, I kept flying. But it really caught my attention”, were the words of the aviator spread by the English medium.
“That Malibu from time to time has like a dense and very low fog inside. You can feel it, very very low in the whole fuselage, ”he added seconds later. He further noted that the left brake pedal was not working properly and “could be dangerous.”
“This plane has to go back to the hangar. It is a very unreliable aircraft,” he told Jones. Hours before Sala boarded the Piper Malibu and they both set off for Cardiff, the pilot said: “Normally I would have my life jacket between my seats, but tomorrow I’m going to use it.”
In the middle of the journey, Sala showed concern about the fragility of the plane. By means of an audio, which he sent to a group of friends through WhatsApp, he admitted: “I am here on the plane, which seems to be falling apart, and I am going to crazy Cardiff. I don’t know, they’re going to send someone to look for me because I don’t know if they’re going to find me. But you know. Dad… I’m so scared”.
The signing of Emiliano Sala and the latest details about the tragedy
In early 2021, Sala became the £15m record signing from Premier League side Cardiff City. At the time of organizing his transfer from France to Wales, the English team offered him to board a commercial flight via Paris. However, the young man refused. He argued that he wanted to take a little more time to say goodbye to the friends and teammates that he had managed to make during his time in Ligue 1.
It was so Willie McKay, the man who helped negotiate the transfer then decided to hire a direct private flight between Nantes and Cardiff through another pilot, David Henderson. Just an hour after taking off from runway number three, the Piper Malibu N264DB disappeared from radar over the English Channel and air and sea rescues were launched.
The aircraft was flying at 5,000 feet when Ibbotson lost control while descending to avoid clouds and plunged into the English Channel just north of the Channel Islands at an estimated speed of 433 km/h. The plane crash investigators found that the footballer would have been “deeply unconscious” from carbon monoxide poisoning. The pilot would probably have been affected as well.
The last images that were known of Emiliano Sala were with the 59-year-old man while they passed through various airport controls.
The young man’s body was recovered from the rubble, 68 meters deep, two weeks after the accident. The N264DB plane was at the bottom of the sea.
Henderson, who organized the flight, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for recklessly endangering the safety of a plane, which was also not licensed for commercial use.
In March 2020, the British Air Accident Investigation Office (AAIB) published its final report on the precipitation of the device, and determined that the pilot lost control of the aircraft during a maneuver carried out at a very high speed, “probably” to avoid bad weather. According to the investigators, the plane would have broken down in that maneuver and, for that reason, they believe that the pilot “probably” was poisoned with carbon monoxide from the engine’s exhaust system.
Sala’s remains were repatriated to Argentina in February 2019. Family, friends, envoys from Nantes, Bordeaux and Cardiff, neighbors… Hundreds of people came to bow down, cry or lay a hand on the coffin of the soccer player from Progreso, the Argentine town of 3,000 inhabitants where he grew up. In France several tributes were made after the announcement of the player’s death.
Meanwhile, less than a month ago, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS), based in Lausanne, rejected an appeal by Cardiff in relation to the transfer of Emiliano Sala from Nantes, and must pay six million euros to the French entity, figure corresponding to the first installment of the signing, which was signed for a total of 17 million. The Lausanne court announced its decision in a statement and stressed that it considers that the transfer of the player was “completed”, beyond the death of the Argentine striker in the accident over the English Channel.
THE NATION (ARGENTINA)
GDA
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