David Ibbotson, the pilot of the crashed plane with the footballer Emiliano Sala on board, had little faith in his plane. The BBC got an audio recording where Ibbotson announces he’s wearing a life jacket and tells a friend that the plane is unreliable.
Sala was killed in 2019 during a flight from France to the UK. The 28-year-old forward moved from French club Nantes to Cardiff City at that time. His plane disappeared from the radar on the English Channel. Sala’s body was found, but the remains of the pilot were not found.
Of BBC he found that after his previous flight to Nantes, Ibbotson had phoned a fellow pilot to complain about the plane. He is said to have heard a suspicious noise in the air.
“I was in the middle of the Channel when I heard a bang,” said the pilot. Also, a pedal wouldn’t work properly. “This plane has to go back to the hangar.”
Sala wasn’t happy either. The Argentine sent a voice message to friends from the plane and said he was afraid. “The device appears to be falling apart.”
Later it turned out that the pilot did not have the correct documents to carry out the flight. The businessman who organized the flight was sentenced to one and a half years in prison.
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