The charge of attempting to discharge a passenger without valid permission or authorisation (namely Emiliano Sala on January 21, 2019) was put to the defendant - and he spoke to confirm his guilty plea.

A trial will take place in respect of count one, namely communicating information to endanger / likely to endanger safety of an aircraft, on January 18 and 19, 2019.

Henderson has pleaded not guilty to this charge.

I can't post the URL to the article but it's on WalesOnline

As I read it he has pled NOT guilty and the case (likely to last 2 weeks) has been pushed back to February 2023.

As far as the remainder of the accuracy of the reporting in the post above goes, it deserves the usual caveat of don't believe a word the media says about flying. Precising the AAIB report arrived at "the pilot had been flying too fast for the plane's design limits".

He has pleaded guilty to "trying to arrange a flight for a passenger without permission or authorisation", which was what today's trial was about. He is denying "a separate charge of endangering the safety of an aircraft." which is what the trial in February is all about.

As for the second part of my post, that has nothing to do with this accident specifically(or any media reporting thereof); it's my (ex) professional opinion as someone who worked in aviation professionally, civilian and military for 30 years and it is an opinion shared by any number of AOC operators (including some who have posted in this thread.)

So I'm not sure where you are going with this...

?????????

PS I am as big a critic of the media as the next man, but they are required by UK law to report court cases accurately, so you can "usually" be confident on the reporting of any court activity from a reputable source. Mine is the BBC today.

My comment was based on the quality of media reporting from www.rte.ie in the post above yours which said that "the crash was caused by the pilot flying too fast". The content under the link above has been seriously updated and radically altered since it was posted this morning.

At that point it said "Henderson denied all charges" and "the trial will be held in full over 2 weeks in Feb 2023." and somehow linked "illegally landing a person in the UK" .. an immigration offence, with the aeroplane being flown in excess of it's design limits. It made no mention of a guilty plea or about a current trial.

It wasn't me !!
 

Oh!, Dave Gittens, be forgiving. Not all of us media types are bad blokes, and very few deliberately mislead. But, it is tricky being "first with the news" in a world that demands the same; not least because we are charged with the difficult job of being first with the news. But I digress...

It has long struck me, and many others, the only real thread of interest is, how did this come about? Yes, there are valid - in my humble journalistic and piloting position - paperwork issues. And, yes, lives have been lost with terrible consequences for family, etc. And there is much valuable and interesting reading to be garnered by those willing to trawl through all the above. Yet one thing is still missing: admission. No-one, as far as I can see, is yet to admit to anything.

I, for one, hope the coming days will teach us all more; if only what one guilty plea really means?

We watch and learn...and if we fail we are all screwed

If Internet Brands has any standards at all, this thread should now be suspended.

I'm happy to be forgiving of genuine human error (BTW it's Gittins not Gittens :}) but less so of (I speak of the original RTE posting now at least twice updated) poor, hasty, inaccurate, reporting, which characterised the Sala crash as the pilot flying faster than the plane was designed to do. We know why it crashed but it wasn't because Ibbotson deliberately oversped it. It wasn't mischaracterised by a bad person, just a hasty and maybe ill informed person.

I didn't come here to do anything other than sympathise with a footballer who lost his life due to, what I think in summary was greed which enlisted the help of poor maintenance, unqualified piloting and inadequate oversight. I wanted to know how it came about, what errors in the chain or holes in the cheese were allowed to build up and cause it, and what is being done to stop it happening again.

I guess the true lesson is that lots of people knows that grey charters occur, but too few, if any, are willing to be grasses.

Certainly not. A relevant discussion and worth updating as things develop. This case may be the start of the authorities taking rule breaking more seriously and if not we need to know.
The non aviation public don't know all the ins and outs of commercial versus private flying and if this helps to inform then it is worth doing.

I am having to bite my tongue already and we are only into opening statements.

Exactly.

Where's the nearest brush and carpet ?

That’ll be because there’s real potential of jail time, heavy fines and multi million pound compensation claims against anyone living, who was part of the group who organised this flight.

Not understandable, actually. It may be easy for an organisation (particularly, it always seems, a public one) to go for the "Low hanging fruit" in enforcement, to find documents signed in the wrong box and such like, and to turn blind eyes to what everyone else sees as obvious transgressions. But it shouldn't be.

Bearing in mind the potential for sub judice discussion here, Wales On Line’s reporter’s are picking out some very salient elements of the trial. Whichever way the jury goes, there’s going to be plenty of WTF? discussion material afterwards….

Read from the bottom upward.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/w...trial-21887929

I agree WHBM, they should not. I suppose I was being too kind. It does send the wrong signals.

The key point to this tragedy and the trial is it illustrates way the Civil Aviation Authority are not capable of controlling the aviation run under flags of convenience , aircraft trusts and lax CAA controls. The American aircraft register is akin to a shipping operator basing his vessels in Liberia.

UK airlines run under the G register while at the bottom end of private aircraft operations there is the Light Aircraft Association. In between there is general aviation where most operators adhere to the increased UK regulations which are above the US register. In most countries in the world there are limitations on how long a foreign registered aircraft can remain locally. In the case of the American N register many wholly owned and operated aircraft exist in the UK without the pilot, operating body or aircraft ever returning to the USA.

This loophole needs to be closed. Many of the horse racing fraternity have used the N register for decades exploiting hour builders who will fly what should be regulated public transport operations on little more than a private pilots licence.

This of course is what we are seeing in the Sala case. When he boarded that Malibu in Nantes he was unaware the pilot only had a PPL and the aircraft was not operating under commercial regulations. There were plenty of legitimate UK air transport companies who could have moved him safely and without risk. However they have to charge more as they stick to the rules and employ qualified pilots. Sadly as we are seeing when things go wrong everyone passes the buck.

My view on all this is if you cannot afford to operate and fly your UK based aircraft on the British register then perhaps you should consider if it is a time to downsize.There is also the issue of UK insurance companies covering these out of country operations.

I have already made my views known to my MP in Norfolk and I sincerely hope the N reg loopholes can be closed.

It remains to be seen I presume what the insurers make of this case. I can't believe they were operating within the terms of their insurance policy. The same goes for any "asset insurance" the football clubs might have on a player.

How would Mr Sala have known whatever register the aircraft was under? It was the pilot who broke the rules.

That is the the problem Jon. When you get it to a taxi you assume it is a registered taxi. However with the likes of Uber there is little or no control on who is driving and if indeed they have a UK licence.

No doubt in this case the deceased pilot was wearing four bars but a Malibu is still a single engine aircraft whereas very few commercial operations are run with only one avgas power plant. How was Sala expected to know this? People tend to take things on trust.

Had I been in Ibbotson's position I would have informed Sala I was departing lunchtime to pick up fuel in the Channel Islands and landed back at Cardiff before nightfall. Personally I have flown that route many times with my family thirty years ago but usually night stopped in Guernsey or Jersey. I have also flown it at night in a single engine aircraft decades ago, with a valid night rating, decades ago but would never take such a risk now.

Of course the decision is easy when you own the aircraft and are not pushed for time.

Working as a paid pilot is different as you are little more than a chauffeur and unlikely to upset the client.

An example of this mentality here. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-35292292

The crew and client died because they were forced to take of when most of us would have left it until another day.

This case will have long reaching repercussions for GA. The insurance issues will no doubt run to millions and substantial litigation. I would not want to be party to these unless protected by a limited company.

Good posts Mr Flynn.

Yes Mike, but whilst I agree entirely with all you say about the legality of the flight: the state of registration of the aircraft has no bearing whatever on what went wrong.

There are hundreds of UK based N reg aircraft operating quite safely and legally, equally I am quite sure that a good share of the illegal grey charter market is flown in G reg aircraft.

It’s the activity that needs to be stopped and you won’t stop it by forcing pilots to re-register all N reg aircraft.

This is one of the most thorough pieces of court reporting I have seen in a very long time. If you haven't time to read the whole thing, I suggest that you read the judge's outline of the basic aspects of the case and the guidance given to the jury as "The "route to a verdict"", which I have quoted below:

YS

I agree. Thanks for posting jumpseater.

This court case though is not about the cause of the crash, which seems to be some mechanical issue that led to carbon monoxide poisoning. But for that, the flight would likely have been successful, there would be no court case and we would not be here discussing it.

Based on what we know from the court reports of the pilots qualifications and ‘currency’ I have my doubts as to whether there would have been a happy ending at Cardiff. If the decision making process/mindset was flawed enough to depart, would it have altered if faced with a divert requirement with the forecast weather and having to make an instrument approach in it.

The South and West weather that night was pretty poor across the board so a ‘clear’ airport may not have been available. I can’t recall from the aaib report the ‘known’ fuel on board and what divert alternates that may have allowed.

Perhaps the question about why private aircraft operators choose the N reg option should be addressed to Grant Shapps? There is clearly a problem with the paperwork and over legislation in the UK.

I have a friend who has over 9000 hours and has been an instructor in Vancouver for many years. However at the age of 67 and wanting to return to the UK where he was born and work part time as a flying instructor he finds the financial barrier of around £8k to get an instructor rating not worth the return.

So he finds it more rewarding to fly back to Canada for a couple of months and instruct on floats and wheels while we lose his skills .

Who on earth would spend £8k for an instructor rating in the UK when the return on capital is abysmal?

I agree: but it’s still not a reason to force hundreds of safe, competent and legal aircraft owners to jump through hoops far more expensive than that to move from the N to the G register.

The FAA is having enough troubles of its own with grey charter in the US, changing registrations won't solve the problem.

When we are allowed to have the post match punditry, apologies for the analogy, we might discuss the questions that weren't asked as well as the ones that were asked.

At the moment I am puzzled as to why the judge wants the jury to consider whether Ibbotson was a 'confident' pilot rather than whether he was a competent one?

They’re linked but not the same thing.

I’m confident I can drive my car in snow and ice, I’ve no formal training in it, and very rarely done it.

Grant Shapps himself has an N reg aircraft!

I doubt he’s using it for illegal charter work, though.

Although nothing to do with the Sala case, it really doesn't send a good message that the secretary responsible for the CAA registers his own PA-32R in the USA. Perhaps the chairman of the CAA would like to comment why people do it.

The jury has now retired to consider their verdict.

I struggle with the concept a bit: if there are, for example, PA-32Rs on the UK register anyway what's the point of not transferring a US aircraft across when it gets here? Is it purely the cost of reregistering?

It's a long time since I shared an N reg in the UK but IIRC the maintenance regime is a lot less taxing. In particular I think the owner can do more unsupervised maintenance than on the G register.

It's also a lot cheaper for an individual to get an FAA licence than an EASA (sorry, CAA) one.

Thanks both: so it's just about saving money: not sure I'd want to fly in an aircraft Mr Shapps had been self spannering...

Guilty
 

Now we can all talk about it.

I think it has all been said in the comments leading up to this verdict.

Henderson was clearly a rogue operator who wanted to blame everyone but himself for this tragedy. There will always be those who want to take advantage of free or paid flying without the necessary qualifications and sadly the pilot was in that category.