The revelations in the trial against the pilot who organized the fateful flight where Emiliano Sala died

A British pilot who is on trial for the death of the Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala In a plane crash in 2019, he was accused on Tuesday by the prosecution of acting motivated by money when he organized an unauthorized flight.

The accused, David Henderson, has already pleaded guilty to one of the two charges against him, “Attempting to register a passenger without valid permission or authorization”, before the start of his trial in Cardiff, UK.

Now he is judged by the other, which he denies, “Endanger the safety of an airplane.”

Prosecutor Martin Goudie explained to the court on Tuesday that “Henderson, as an operator (…) organized two flights ”, one on 19 January from Cardiff to Nantes for the footballer, who had just been signed by the Welsh club, to go to France, where he played until then, to collect his belongings and say goodbye to his teammates, and another one back two days later to join his first training session.

“He organized them because he was financially interested”, stressed.

In the dark of night and in difficult weather conditions, the private plane, a Piper PA-46 Malibu, who was taking the 28-year-old to his new destination, traded from Nantes for 17 million euros ($ 20.4 million), fell into the waters of the English Channel on January 21, 2019.

The corpse of Living room, whose death shocked the world of football, was found in the housing of the device more than two weeks later, at a depth of 67 meters. The body of the pilot, David Ibbotson 59, was never located.

He looked for someone to replace him

Henderson, who is also a pilot, acted negligently or recklessly when organizing these flights “when the aircraft was not authorized to do so and when using a pilot who was neither qualified nor competent ”, launched the prosecutor.

Goudie explained that it was Henderson, 67, who was supposed to fly the plane that was taking Sala, but he was not available so he arranged everything for Ibbotson to replace him.

“Ibbotson did not have a commercial pilot license, his aircraft type N264DB rating had expired in November 2018 and he was not competent to fly in the weather conditions that Henderson knew flights would encounter,” added.

The initial search for the player and the pilot was suspended in the days after the disappearance of the device.

But on January 26, 2019, two days after the end of official operations, Sala’s family reported that they would continue on their own, hiring a private company thanks to the funds obtained through an online collection.

The family had received the support of several players, among them the Argentine stars Lionel Messi, Gonzalo Higuaín and Nicolás Otamendi, and this allowed finding the remains of the striker, who was buried in his town of Progreso.

His sister Romina was especially involved in the search for the plane in the UK. But the blow was fatal for the father, Horacio Sala, who died of a heart attack three months after his son.

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