Footballer Died Of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning n Severe Head n Chest Injuries

The jury was told that the flight was arranged as part of the Argentinian striker’s Emiliano Sala £15m transfer to Cardiff City, then in the Premier League, from the French Ligue 1 side Nantes.

Emiliano Sala was being flown by pilot David Ibbotson from France to Wales in a Piper Malibu on the night of 21 January 2019 when it crashed into the sea close to Guernsey.

The footballer’s body was recovered from the seabed 68 metres down. Postmortem tests found he was overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning and died of severe head and chest injuries. The body of Ibbotson, 59, from Lincolnshire, was not found.

The footballer Emiliano Sala died as a result of a plane crash, having been overcome by toxic levels of carbon monoxide from the aircraft’s faulty exhaust system during an unlicensed commercial flight from France to Wales, an inquest jury has ruled.

 Sala’s family welcomed the jury’s conclusion and said that they were pleased that the coroner Rachael Griffin expressed concerns about safety issues that arose during the inquest.

Speaking after the jury’s conclusions on behalf of Sala’s mother and two siblings, solicitor Daniel Machover said: “This inquest has exposed the complex facts leading to Emiliano’s untimely death. It has shone a bright light on many of the missed opportunities in the worlds of football and aviation to prevent his tragic death.

 “The family particularly note the jury’s findings that it is likely that both the pilot and Emiliano suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning and that Emiliano was deeply unconscious at the time of the accident, and that the poisoning was caused by a failure in the aircraft exhaust system.

“The family also welcome the coroner’s decision to communicate to the relevant authorities her concerns about the safety issues arising from this inquest in order to prevent similar future deaths. No family should have to go through grief from a similar avoidable accident.”

Sala’s mother, Mercedes Taffarel, told the inquest that Cardiff had put “a lot of pressure” on Sala to complete the move quickly and he felt in the middle of a dispute over money between the Welsh and French clubs.

Taffarel said that after the tragedy, relatives of Sala travelled to Guernsey in the hope that her son had somehow survived. “In the cold weather we walked on those islands calling his name, hoping to hear from him,” she said.

The jury was told that Ibbotson held a licence that did not permit him to fly commercially or at night. On the flight out to France a loud bang came from the aircraft but Ibbotson did not tell the authorities.

David Henderson, the businessman who arranged the flight, has been jailed for his part but, giving evidence via video link, he insisted he had not banned Ibbotson from warning air traffic control of problems to avoid his business dealings coming to the attention of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

 He said it would have been up to Ibbotson to ground the plane if he thought it was not safe, and claimed he had forgotten he could not fly at night.

 Jurors were told that Ibbotson was also likely to have been overcome by carbon monoxide minutes before the plane crashed. Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) experts testified that they believed the most likely cause for dangerous levels of carbon monoxide getting into the cabin was a faulty exhaust system.

 Brian McDermid, an AAIB inspector, said pilots were encouraged to carry carbon monoxide detectors but this was not mandatory. “One of the problems of carbon monoxide is it’s odourless and in the cabin you may not be aware of its presence,” McDermid said. “Which is why we think the use of carbon monoxide detectors in light aircraft should be mandatory – at the moment they are not.”

The flight was arranged by the football agent Willie McKay, a long-time client of Henderson, who was involved in Sala’s move to Cardiff. 

McKay claimed he organised the flight because he knew Cardiff City would not pay for it. He said: “I have used David Henderson for 14 years and he had never let me down. David Henderson was a top, top pilot and flew in the RAF and flew planes all round the world. The most important thing was to help Emi.”