Cardiff City Footballer Feared Missing after aircraft disappeared near Channel Island

[Ddraig Goch]

BBC Radio 4 have made a documentary about this subject. Find it here on BBC sounds:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0...ory_SEG_PNC%5D

[DaveReidUK]

New BBC audio from a telephone conversation Ibbotson had prior to the return flight:

"I picked a footballer up from Cardiff

They've entrusted me to pick him up in a dodgy [Malibu] Mirage

Normally I'd have my lifejacket in between my seats, but tomorrow I'll be wearing my lifejacket, that's for sure"

Emiliano Sala: Pilot told friend doomed plane was 'dodgy'

[Richard Dangle]

I've already made my thoughts (as an aviation professional of 27 years standing) on this utterly preventable, avoidable and unnecessary "accident" crystal clear in this thread and repetition will not strengthen my point, so I'll simply remark that I hope this genie is out the bottle and stays out. The genie being some of the archaic GA regulations and the resulting weak enforcement of them. I'm no longer in the aviation profession, but I know that many who are share my views.

Some of the immediately involved have faced the consequences... hopefully that does not end the matter, as a few minutes research just on this website alone will show dozens of accidents which share the same characteristics as this one.

Condolences to all the bereaved families and friends (including those of the pilot) but I hope they can endure the continuing spotlight in the hope that some good will come from it all.

[Ddraig Goch]

A TV documentary about Emiliano is now available on BBC Iplayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...-emiliano-sala

Has anything been done by the CAA to try to stop this kind of thing happening again?

[Geriaviator]

I very much doubt it. The CAA does try but so many PPLs do it that it becomes impossible to prove until a disaster such as this happens. I'm still horrified by the Wingly concession. One factor that should be publicised is the clause in many insurance policies (particularly those attached to mortgages) which excludes flight except in multi-engined aircraft flown by a pilot with not less than commercial multi-engine rating.

[alfaman]

Originally Posted by Ddraig Goch

A TV documentary about Emiliano is now available on BBC Iplayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...-emiliano-sala

Has anything been done by the CAA to try to stop this kind of thing happening again?

The CAA will do what they can, but are constrained the way everyone else is. Those that deliberately flout the rules can only be brought to book if the government puts the resources in to do so, & I'm afraid I don't see any will to do that.

[Jonzarno]

Originally Posted by Geriaviator

I'm still horrified by the Wingly concession.

I am in favour of genuine cost sharing, even if it is advertised on line. But many of the ads on Wingly seem to me to be well across the line defining illegal charters. Cleaning that up by publishing a clear definition of what is and what isn't acceptable cost sharing, as the FAA has done in the US, would at least go some way to help.

[India Four Two]

… what is and what isn't acceptable cost sharing, as the FAA has done in the US, …

Could you post the reference?

[uxb99]

What I don't understand with this unfortunate incident is the apparent complicity of the footballer in question (not blaming him here, this is just an opinion, observation) to fly in the aircraft in the first place.
Obviously with hindsight but if it was me, I would have insisted a main carrier first class with all the bells and whistles. After all he was worth several million. Academic of course but flying with a single pilot in a small aircraft doesn't seem to fit the footballer lifestyle?

[Jonzarno]

Originally Posted by India Four Two

Could you post the reference?

Here it is

[jumpseater]

Originally Posted by uxb99

What I don't understand with this unfortunate incident is the apparent complicity of the footballer in question (not blaming him here, this is just an opinion, observation) to fly in the aircraft in the first place.
Obviously with hindsight but if it was me, I would have insisted a main carrier first class with all the bells and whistles. After all he was worth several million. Academic of course but flying with a single pilot in a small aircraft doesn't seem to fit the footballer lifestyle?

Time was critical in the sequence of events. Sala had returned to Nantes to say goodbye to former team mates. This was arranged as I recall by the agent Willie McKay or his son and done as a favour. Previously in the chain of events a biz jet had been used, perhaps Sala was expecting that too rather than the Malibu.

Sala had to be back in Cardiff for PR/ training on the day after the accident, and left Nantes late. As the aircraft had delivered him ‘safely’ southbound, and time was against him, not unreasonable for him to assume the same northbound. Let’s assume the cowboy pilot looked and sounded professional when customer facing, rather than the incompetent one that was the truthful position.

Easy to spot with the benefits of hindsight and background knowledge. Looking at Cardiffs Met both actual and forecast vs pilot experience/currency, I don’t think a safe arrival was in anyway assured either.

To a 28 year old soccer player, under time pressure, probably not wanting to let the new club down on his first day in the office, and now entering the big leagues nowhere like as obvious, hence boarding the aircraft.

[733driver]

Originally Posted by uxb99

What I don't understand with this unfortunate incident is the apparent complicity of the footballer in question (not blaming him here, this is just an opinion, observation) to fly in the aircraft in the first place.
Obviously with hindsight but if it was me, I would have insisted a main carrier first class with all the bells and whistles. After all he was worth several million. Academic of course but flying with a single pilot in a small aircraft doesn't seem to fit the footballer lifestyle?

I haven't checked but strongly suspect there is no airline service from Nantes to Cardiff, let alone by a major airline and certainly not first class as that doesn't generally exist on short haul European flights.

Footballers travel regularilly on small aicraft. Many private jets are not much bigger than the accident aircraft and some are flown single Pilot but not commercially in Europe.

I do however agree to an extent with the point you are trying to make.

[SWBKCB]

I haven't checked but strongly suspect there is no airline service from Nantes to Cardiff, let alone by a major airline and certainly not first class as that doesn't generally exist on short haul European flights.

The most direct route would have been via Amsterdam

[ATC Watcher]

Originally Posted by SWBKCB

The most direct route would have been via Amsterdam

And safest in this case, which if I remember was proposed initially to the Club but it was refused in favor of this flight.
Does anyone knows if the British Club actually paid for the footballer transfer in the end ? They initially refused, there was court case , but I missed the results or if a compromise was found in the meantime

[jumpseater]

Originally Posted by ATC Watcher

Does anyone knows if the British Club actually paid for the footballer transfer in the end ? They initially refused, there was court case , but I missed the results or if a compromise was found in the meantime

Fifa have determined that Cardiff should pay £5.1m, the first installment to Nantes. Cardiff are not paying anything and appealing the decision. If that fails they will take legal action against ‘those responsible for the crash for damages to recover its losses’.
So presumably that means the McKay agent/s Henderson and perhaps the estate of Ibbotson.

[733driver]

Originally Posted by ATC Watcher

And safest in this case, which if I remember was proposed initially to the Club but it was refused in favor of this flight.

Certainly safer than the chosen option but why safest? A direct flight on a well maintained twin-turbine business aircraft flown by a professional crew of two in compliance with rules and regulations would have been just fine, would it not.

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by SWBKCB

The most direct route would have been via Amsterdam

Timings at the time are back in post #110 of this thread, all on KLM Nantes-Amsterdam-Cardiff. Actually not a huge timing difference, depart Nantes 1715.

[Mike Flynn]

I have made my point on this in the past but even if a fully qualified pilot had been in the left hand seat the carbon monoxide leak would have produced the same result. The one thing to learn from this accident is that cheap carbon monoxide alarms are available and should be mandatory in all light aircraft.

[Eutychus]

Originally Posted by uxb99

Obviously with hindsight but if it was me, I would have insisted a main carrier first class with all the bells and whistles. After all he was worth several million. Academic of course but flying with a single pilot in a small aircraft doesn't seem to fit the footballer lifestyle?

As mentioned in this thread previously, for work purposes I've flown as a passenger in a single pilot piston engine aircraft to the Channel Islands and back with a senior French government official on board. He might not have been worth millions but the diplomatic fallout had anything happened would have been significant.

If one is in a business situation at that level where other people are making the arrangements I think it's quite natural for the passengers to assume the operation is safe. As you can read from earlier in this thread, it took me this accident and this thread for me to realise how unsafe such an operation can become, and to realise that I was probably not insured on any of the several similar flights I took.

[paulross]

Originally Posted by Mike Flynn

I have made my point on this in the past but even if a fully qualified pilot had been in the left hand seat the carbon monoxide leak would have produced the same result. The one thing to learn from this accident is that cheap carbon monoxide alarms are available and should be mandatory in all light aircraft.

The AAIB have a recommendation about this from July 1972, 50 years ago: 13-1972_G-AYPN.pdf (last page).