FA ‘failed to answer’ pleas over safety after Sala crash
THE Football Association and other sports bodies did not reply to a plea for help to eliminate the illegal flights which caused the death of Emiliano Sala.
The FA, Lawn Tennis Association and Jockey Cub were among organisations which the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) wrote to in September 2019, nine months after Sala was killed in a plane operated by a businessman who did not have a commercial licence and was using an unqualified pilot.
CAA chief executive Richard Moriarty told the organisations in the letter that sportspeople were at particular risk and pleaded for help in a campaign that would alert them to the dangers.
The letter, seen by The Mail on Sunday, asked the FA and others for ‘public support for the launch of the campaign by naming you on the relevant information on our website and in any media work’. But the CAA did not receive a single reply to their letter and the campaign was never launched.
Three years after Sala’s death, unregulated private charters still remain so prevalent that the coroner at the player’s inquest, which concluded on Thursday, has written to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps for his assistance.
The inquest heard graphic evidence of how illegal, unregulated flights, which frequent–flyer footballers and jockeys use regularly, can kill. Sala and pilot David Ibbotson were poisoned by carbon monoxide leaking from a faulty 12-year-old exhaust system before the crash.
The safety standards for a commercial flight would have made it mandatory to have already replaced the exhaust system. For a private flight, replacing such a system was only recommended.
Daniel Machover, of Hickman and Rose solicitors, who represent the Sala family, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘We want to see sporting bodies working to dissuade sportspeople from using these illegal flights. Emiliano’s tragic death has revealed the consequences of this trade.’
An FA spokesman said: ‘We recognise the Civil Aviation Authority’s important role as a regulator. We have been in dialogue with them on several occasions since this tragic incident.’
Meanwhile, Cardiff City and Nantes continue their long legal battle over whether the Championship club must pay the £15million transfer fee agreed when Sala moved to South Wales.