EMILIANO SALA A YEAR ON: THE ARREST, INVESTIGATION AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
AYEAR on from the catastrophic tragedy which claimed the life of Emiliano Sala and leaves pilot David Ibbotson unaccounted for to this day, a plethora of unanswered questions persist.
Tuesday marks the first anniversary of that fateful flight from Nantes to Cardiff that ended in such unspeakable tragedy.
The morning after the singleengine plane crashed into the English Channel, news began to filter through that the aircraft was carrying new Cardiff City striker Sala, 28, along with husband and father Mr Ibbotson.
The eyes of the football world became transfixed on the expansive search, and then recovery, operation in the days and weeks that followed. Sala’s body was eventually recovered from the seabed plane wreckage on February 6, 2019. Mr Ibbotson, 59, has never been found.
A year on and there are many unresolved threads to uncovering how this seismic event came to pass.
There has been one arrest in direct connection with Sala’s death: a 64-year-old man from North Yorkshire was arrested in June on suspicion of manslaughter by an unlawful act.
Dorset Police was tasked with considering whether there was any evidence of suspected criminality, with the arrest coming after their initial inquiries.
The police force confirmed on Friday the arrested man remains released under investigation, and no charges have been brought to date.
His name has never been officially confirmed by police.
Football agent Willie McKay, who helped facilitate Sala’s move from France, has publicly stated he booked the flight by contacting an experienced pilot from York called David Henderson, whom he had used many times before.
He said he intended to cover the cost of the journey by paying Mr Henderson, and had no input into choosing the pilot or the plane.
Mr Henderson, previously advertising himself as an “aviation facilitator”, has remained silent on the matter in public, and has been contacted for comment by Wales on Sunday multiple times.
He is the man who was initially falsely named as the pilot in French media reports. He later took to Facebook to confirm he was alive and well but has since deleted his social media profile and declined to say anything to reporters.
It later emerged the plane used was not licensed for a commercial journey, and there have been widespread reports claiming Mr Ibbotson was not allowed to fly at night due to colour blindness.
Exactly how Mr Ibbotson came to be flying the plane is information that is not in the public domain to this day. It is a key question for all involved in the turmoil that unfolded.
Two people are serving jail terms in the aftermath of the tragedy after illegally accessing footage of Sala’s body in a mortuary in Bournemouth.
The striker’s body was transported by vessel to Portland after recovery, with a post-mortem examination then being carried out in the days that followed.
CCTV company director Sherry Bray, of Camera Security Services Limited, and her employee Christopher Ashford, 62 – “driven by morbid curiosity”, according to the judge who jailed them – accessed footage of the procedure being conducted on Sala.
A court heard Bray had sent a message to night worker Ashford before his shift, which said: “There’s a nice one on the table for you to watch when you’re next in”, while images were also shared widely on social media after Bray took a picture of a CCTV clip and sent it on.
Bray was jailed for 14 months and Ashford for five months.
The inquest into Sala’s death has not yet concluded and, if any criminal prosecution is to be launched, could yet be suspended.
But key findings so far include that he died of “head and trunk injuries” and that he had to be identified by fingerprint evidence.
The wreckage of the Piper Malibu aircraft has now washed away. Sala’s family organised for a sonar survey of the crash site in October, only to learn the wreckage, other than some debris, was no longer there.
That survey was conducted after the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) decided it would not recover the aircraft wreckage. A senior inspector told an inquest hearing the AAIB felt it had identified safety issues without the need to further examine the crashed plane.
Another inquest hearing has been scheduled for March.
The AAIB has been conducting its inquiries for almost a year now.
Key details published so far, from first a preliminary and then a special report, include:
■ The wreckage was found on the seabed just 30m away from final recorded radar readings, while the aircraft fell dramatically in the space of around 20 seconds;
■ the plane was not allowed to be used for commercial operations without permission, throwing the legitimacy of the status of the flight under intense scrutiny;
■ the aircraft was “extensively damaged” when located on the seabed, with the main body of the plane found in three parts.
A special bulletin from investigators, issued in August, revealed Sala had been exposed to “potentially fatal” levels of carbon monoxide which could have caused seizure, unconsciousness or heart attack.
Investigators found Mr Ibbotson was also likely to have been affected, as the cockpit was not separated from the cabin.
The consultation phase of the wider AAIB investigation is now complete, and it is considering the comments it has collected and integrating them into its final report.
The full findings are due to be published by the end of March.
Mr Ibbotson, who worked as a gas fitter and was a member of the British Parachute Association, was not found amid the seabed wreckage,
and has never been located despite a separate privately funded search by specialist divers.
A new book, The Killing of Emiliano Sala, penned by Harry Harris, carries a theory that Mr Ibbotson may have even avoided the fatal crash.
“How is it that if David Ibbotson had one outstanding skill, it was as a skydiver?” the book reads.
“And why was the pilot not in the plane when the privately funded salvage operation discovered [Sala’s] body?
“Was the pilot able to eject before it plummeted to its fate? If the pilot survived, where is he? If he didn’t, where is his body?”
There is no evidence to support such a theory, and Mr Ibbotson is presumed dead.
Cardiff City have been locked in a bitter dispute with Nantes over the £15m transfer fee to bring Sala to the Welsh capital, and it does not appear this will be resolved swiftly.
Cardiff argue he was not officially their player at the time of his death and are not responsible for the fee, while Nantes disagree.
Fifa stepped in and have already ordered the Bluebirds to pay up the first instalment fee – £5.3m – but the club is appealing the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Cardiff’s view is they did not put Sala on the plane, pick the pilot or choose the aircraft, while they also insist certain conditions of the deal to bring him to Wales had not been met. The appeal is due to be heard this spring.
At some point in the coming days, Wales on Sunday understands it is the Bluebirds’ intention to put their point of view across to fans and media in general about the non-payment of the transfer fee instalment. They feel this could put a different perspective on the situation; the club feels no one has yet got anywhere near the truth.
The club are also keen for a trust to be set up for the Sala family which they can pay into.
For now, the club are preparing the case with their lawyers for the CAS appeal.
In a new twist, The Killing of Emiliano Sala book claims Cardiff have actually hired top French lawyer Eric Dupond-Moretti to explore criminal and civil litigation for manslaughter against Nantes in France.
It says a decision is expected this month about whether the unprecedented action can go ahead.