Emiliano Sala: What the pilot suspected of the plane malfunctions in which the Argentine footballer died

Pilot David Ibbotson was heard saying “I’m going to wear a life jacket” before the fateful flight of Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala in an exclusive audio recording, which the BBC has access to.

In the recording, Ibbotson, who also died in the accident, told a friend about it The plane was defective..

New footage has also been revealed showing Sala before boarding the plane from France to Wales that later crashed in January 2019.

The Argentine footballer had just signed a millionaire transfer deal from French club Nantes to Cardiff City in Wales, which was then in the Premier League.

Ibbotson took Sala, who did not have a commercial pilot’s license and could not carry passengers, to western France to say goodbye to his friends and collect some of his belongings.

He flew to Nantes on Saturday, January 19, and planned to return the following Monday, the day of the accident.

The BBC has exclusive audio of a phone call with a friendly pilot revealing for the first time the technical problems Ibbotson encountered on his trip to France.

During the trip to Nantes, Ibbotson said he heard a “pop” and complained that he could feel a “very light haze” inside the Piper Malibu plane.And the 35 years old.

“I’m in the middle of the (English) Channel and ‘boom’,” Ibbotson told his friend Kevin Jones, describing the anger during the trip to Nantes.

“I fly and then boom. I thought, ‘Is something wrong?’ “So I pushed everything forward and checked my parameters, everything was fine and still in flight, but it caught my eye.”

“This is Malibu, it sometimes feels like a fog now and then. You can feel it, very lightly through the tire.”

Ibbotson, 59, said he realized it The left brake on the Piper Malibu was not working After landing at Nantes Atlantic Airport. “This plane should go back to the hangar,” he told his friend.

The conversation was mistakenly recorded and obtained by the BBC.

Ibbotson added: “I usually wear my life jacket between the seats, but tomorrow I will wear the life jacket”And the ibbotson added, Before the flight back to Cardiff.

The only two people on board were Emiliano Sala and David Ibbotson, from the town of Crowell in northern England.

The footballer also expressed his concerns about the arrival of the plane A voice message which he sent to his close friends when he was taking off from Nantes.

“Dad, I’m so scared,” said the player, commenting that the plane was “on the verge of crashing.”

“I don’t know if they will send someone to look for me because they won’t find me,” Sala said in the letter to her friends.

The young Argentine would have no idea Ibbotson was not qualified to take him from Nantes to Cardiff on that fateful night. They were so lonely An amateur pilot without a license to carry passengers or fly at night.

Cardiff City had offered the newly signed player a commercial flight through Paris, but Sala wanted more time to say goodbye to his former friends and teammates at Nantes before returning to Wales for his first training session with his new club.

So Willie McKay, the guy who helped manage transportation, booked a private flight – between Nantes and Cardiff – through another pilot, David Henderson.

Since Henderson couldn’t handle the request, he called Ibbotson.

About an hour after taking off from Runway III in Nantes, the Piper Malibu N264DB lost radar contact over the English Channel, and an air and sea rescue operation was launched.

The ship was flying at 5,000 feet, but The pilot lost control whenslit to avoid clouds He attempted an emergency landing on the canal at a speed of approximately 434 kilometers per hour.

Accident investigators found that the footballer could have been “unconscious” from inhaling carbon monoxide and that the pilot may have been affected as well.

The player’s body was recovered from the shipwreck when it was discovered at a depth of 68 meters two weeks after the accident. Ibbotson’s body has not been found.

The N264DB was abandoned at the bottom of the English Channel.

Henderson, who coordinated the trip, was sentenced to 18 months in prison. for endangering the safety of an aircraft in the manner in which the flight was arranged and for the commercial use of the aircraft without permission.

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