Wife of Emiliano Sala’s pilot says she will never get closure until his body is found as final report into crash that killed Cardiff City footballer is due to be published
- Report into crash will be released by Air Accidents Investigation Branch today
- Emiliano Sala, 28, was discovered inside wreckage but body of pilot never found
- Wife of pilot, David Ibbotson, said family won’t get closure until body is found
The wife of the pilot who was killed in a plane crash with Emiliano Sala has said her family won’t get closure until his body is found.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) is due to publish its final report into the crash this afternoon.
Cardiff City striker Sala, 28, was discovered dead inside the wreckage but the body of 59-year-old pilot David Ibbotson, was never recovered.
His wife, Nora, is desperate for the report to give her family answers.
Emiliano Sala died when a plane plunged into the English Channel on January 21 last year
Argentinian striker Sala, was flying from Nantes in France to Cardiff after signing for Cardiff City, when the Piper Malibu aircraft plunged into the Channel on January 21, 2019.
Speaking from their home in Crowle, North Lincolnshire, Mrs Ibbotson told Good Morning Britain: ‘It goes over in your mind – what if this, what if that.
‘I think the media forgets we don’t have David back.’
An interim report published by the AAIB shortly after the accident stated that Mr Ibbotson was not licensed to conduct commercial flights.
David Ibbotson (pictured with wife Nora) was flying the Piper Malibu light aircraft carrying the 28-year-old Cardiff City signing
Fans look at the flowers placed outside Cardiff City Stadium in tribute to Sala – who never played for his new club – on February 2 last year
Speaking from their home in Crowle, North Lincolnshire, Mrs Ibbotson told Good Morning Britain: ‘It goes over in your mind – what if this, what if that’
It also found that Sala had carbon monoxide saturation levels of 58 per cent in blood taken from his dead body.
Doctors have told crash investigators that levels in excess of 50 per cent in the bloodstream typically causes seizures, then unconsciousness, followed by cardiac arrest and death.
The report raises the prospect that the footballer and his pilot may have blacked out or even perished before the small plane ploughed into the sea 22 miles off Guernsey on January 21 last year.
The aircraft remains underwater off the coast of Guernsey after an attempt to recover it was hampered by bad weather.
Dave Ibbotson, 59, was flying the Piper PA-46 Malibu light aircraft with Mr Sala inside. It later emerged he did not hold a night rating on his private pilot’s licence
David Henderson (pictured with the doomed plane) was arrested on suspicion of the manslaughter of Emiliano Sala and David Ibbotson
Relatives of Sala and Mr Ibbotson have called for the wreckage to be salvaged to help find out what happened.
The AAIB said it has not made another retrieval attempt due to the high costs involved, the information already collected and the risk the wreckage would ‘not yield definitive evidence’.
Cardiff City continues to be locked in a legal dispute with Nantes over payment of the footballer’s £15million transfer fee.
The wreckage of the Piper Malibu still sits at the bottom of the Channel (pictured in February) – 220ft down
The Welsh club argue they were not liable for the full amount because Sala was not officially their player when he died.
Sala had signed for Cardiff City from Nantes hours before the crash and was flying to meet his new teammates when the plane went down.
Cardiff City recently urged the French authorities to launch an official investigation into Sala’s death.
Dorset Police announced on Wednesday that no further action will be taken against a 64-year-old man from North Yorkshire arrested on suspicion of manslaughter in relation to the crash.
Sala’s body was recovered from the wreckage of the plane more than 22 miles off Guernsey in early February
Former football agent Willie McKay has said he paid for the fatal flight but did not choose the pilot or the plane.
He has explained he was helping his son Mark, who was acting for Nantes, to complete the transfer.
Two people were jailed in September last year for illegally accessing mortuary security camera images of Sala’s body.
CCTV company director Sherry Bray, 49, and her employee Christopher Ashford, 62, watched footage of the post-mortem examination and took screenshots of the images.
A post mortem examination revealed Mr Sala died of head and chest injuries when the light aircraft crashed in the sea 22 miles off Guernsey.
A handout video issued by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch of the windscreen and cockpit area of the wreckage of the plane
Mr Sala’s body was found on February 6 and brought to Portland, Dorset, on February 7 when he was officially pronounced deceased.
The Argentinian striker was identified using finger print evidence analysed by an expert Christopher Bradbury.
Home Office Forensic pathologist Basil Purdue carried out a post mortem examination which confirmed the cause of death as ‘head and trunk injuries’.
A van by the Geo Ocean III specialist search vessel docked in Portland, Dorset, which brought back the body recovered from the wreckage of the plane carrying Sala, on February 7
Toxicology tests found Mr Sala had potentially fatal levels of caroxyhaemoglobin – formed in the blood when exposed to carbon monoxide – in his blood.
The AAIB said carbon monoxide poisoning could reduce a pilot’s ability to fly a plane by causing symptoms including impaired judgement and blurred vision.
This has prompted lawyers for the Sala family to call for the plane to be recovered from the sea to be investigated.
Timeline: How the Sala tragedy unfolded over the English Channel
January 21, 2019:
The single-turbine engine Piper PA-46 Malibu leaves Nantes at 7.15pm for Cardiff and is flying at an altitude of 5,000ft. At 8.50pm the plane disappears from radar in the English Channel.
January 22:
The French civil aviation authority confirms Argentinian footballer Emiliano Sala, 28, who had just signed for Cardiff City, was on board the light aircraft. Piloting the plane was David Ibbotson, from Crowle, near Scunthorpe.
January 24:
Guernsey’s harbour master Captain David Barker says the chances Sala and Mr Ibbotson have survived is ‘extremely remote’.
January 26:
It emerges that football agent Willie McKay arranged for the flight to take Sala to Cardiff but he says he had no involvement in selecting the plane or pilot. He also backs calls for the search to continue.
January 27:
Relatives and friends of Sala arrive in Guernsey, having enlisted the help of shipwreck hunting expert David Mearns.
January 28:
Sala’s family, including his mother Mercedes and sister Romina, take a chartered flight in a plane operated by Guernsey airline Aurigny over the area where the plane disappeared.
January 30:
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) says two seat cushions found washed up earlier in the week near Surtainville on the Cotentin Peninsula are likely to have come from the plane carrying Sala and his pilot.
February 3:
Wreckage of the plane is located in a fresh, privately funded search which was made possible after a fundraising campaign saw more than £260,000 donated.
Feburary 4:
A body is visible in seabed video footage of the wreckage of the plane. The AAIB says the footage was filmed using an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) which was surveying the area after the plane was located.
February 6:
A body seen in the wreckage of the plane is recovered. The AAIB says the body will be taken to Portland to be passed over to the Dorset coroner for examination.
The aircraft remains 67 metres underwater 21 miles off the coast of Guernsey. The AAIB says attempts to recover the aircraft wreckage were unsuccessful and, due to continued poor weather forecast, ‘the difficult decision was taken to bring the overall operation to a close’.
February 7:
The Geo Ocean III search boat returns to dock in Portland, Dorset, carrying the wreckage of the Piper Malibu aircraft. Investigators wait to confirm if the body inside the wreckage is that of the pilot or the Argentinian footballer – and identified him using his fingerprints.
June 5:
Two people charged over a photograph taken in a mortuary of footballer Emiliano Sala that was posted on social media.
June 19:
David Henderson, 64, from York, arrested on suspicion of manslaughter by an unlawful act. He was later released under investigation.
August 14:
An interim report by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch reveals tests on Sala’s body have found enough evidence of carbon monoxide to cause a heart attack, seizure or unconsciousness
November 6: A pre-inquest review heard that the wreckage of the plane in which footballer Emiliano Sala was killed in will not be recovered from the sea despite the wishes of the family to do otherwise.
March 11: Dorset Police confirm they will take no further action against David Henderson, the 64-year-old pilot arrested on suspicion of manslaughter in relation to the plane crash that killed footballer Emiliano Sala
CCTV company director and her employee jailed for leaking footage of Emiliano Sala’s post-mortem procedure
A ‘wicked and evil’ CCTV company director and her colleague who took ‘horrible photos’ of Emiliano Sala’s dead body were both jailed for a total of 19 months last September.
Sherry Bray, 49, and Christopher Ashford, 62, who repeatedly watched the grisly film of the dead footballer’s post-mortem, were put behind bars at Swindon Crown Court after admitting the ghoulish crime.
Bray and Ashford used their access to CCTV cameras at Bournemouth mortuary to watch his post-mortem and take images of his corpse on a phone.
Sherry Bray and Christopher Ashford have been jailed at Swindon Crown Court for 14 months and five months respectively for illegally accessing footage showing the post-mortem examination of footballer Emiliano Sala
Company director Bray, who was jailed for 14 months for three counts of computer misuse and perverting the course of justice, sent it to a relative on Facebook and the horrific image of Sala’s body was then shared around the world via social media.
Ashford was also jailed for five months for illegally accessing footage of Sala’s corpse.
Judge Peter Crabtree said: ‘You were both driven by morbid curiosity. You have both abused your positions and the access you had in quite an appalling way.
‘You both knew it would be a gross intrusion on privacy and respect for the deceased and cause considerable distress to his family if they became aware of that’.
Bray sent a screenshot to her youngest daughter, while Ashford let a friend photograph the screenshot he had taken.
Sherry Bray (foreground) and Christopher Ashford (background) accessed footage of the post-mortem examination being conducted on Mr Sala after his death and took pictures
‘By those actions, you both showed a level of disrespect such that if knowledge of your conduct became public, as it did, it would cause considerable harm, and risk wider promulgation of any photograph you had taken,’ the judge said.
After realising that police were investigating, Bray deleted the file from her phone and asked Ashford to do the same but they were arrested and prosecuted with three counts of computer misuse.
Romina Sala said in a victim impact statement read to the court that should could not forget seeing the image of her brother’s body for the first time on Instagram.
She said: ‘I’ll never erase the images from my head. My brother and mother can never forget about this. It’s hard for me to live with this image.’
She added: ‘I cannot believe there are people so wicked and evil who could do that’.
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