The organizer of the theft sentenced to eighteen months in prison

David Henderson had so far been released. The intermediary who organized the flight whose crash claimed the life of Argentinian footballer Emiliano Sala in 2019 was sentenced to eighteen months in prison on Friday for hiring a pilot he knew was unqualified. On October 28, after two weeks of hearings and seven hours of deliberation, a people’s jury in a Cardiff court found the 67-year-old man guilty of “recklessness” or “negligence likely to have committed endangering an appliance ”. He had, moreover, pleaded guilty to “transporting a passenger without valid authorization”.

The small private plane aboard which the 28-year-old player and pilot David Ibbotson were aboard crashed in the English Channel on January 21, 2019. The FC Nantes striker was joining Cardiff City club, where he had just been transferred for 17 million euros.

The body of the player, whose disappearance had moved the football world, was found in the carcass of the device, more than two weeks after the accident, at a depth of 67 meters. The body of the pilot, 59, has not been found.

Not competent to fly at night

According to the prosecution, the defendant was initially supposed to fly the aircraft but, while on vacation in Paris with his wife, he had entrusted the transport to David Ibbotson. The latter did not have a commercial pilot license, his qualification for this type of aircraft had expired and he was not competent to fly at night. Producing text messages at the hearing, prosecutor Martin Goudie accused the intermediary of having acted “in his financial interest” and of knowing full well that the pilot was not qualified: “He ignored certain (security) requirements when it suited him and his business interests ”.

The owner of the Piper Malibu, Fay Keely, had also indicated during her testimony that she had explicitly asked the defendant in writing to no longer use the services of David Ibbotson, after several reported violations. David Henderson’s defense, however, had refuted any “recklessness”, asserting that the breaches of regulations alleged against his client were “purely a matter of paperwork” and that they had not really put the theft in danger.

More than 3,500 flight hours to his credit

His lawyer Stephen Spence had assured that the only difference between a commercial and private license was the possibility of making the passengers pay, without this saying anything about the capacities of the pilot, who had more than 3,500 flight hours to his credit. In its final report published in March 2020, the British Aviation Accident Investigation Bureau estimated that the pilot was “probably” poisoned with carbon monoxide from the engine’s exhaust system.

He concluded that the pilot had lost control of the aircraft during a maneuver performed at too high a speed, “probably” intended to avoid bad weather. The aircraft was launched at a speed of 270 miles per hour (435 km / h) upon impact with the water, leaving no hope of survival.