By akademiotoelektronik, 13/11/2022

Death of Emiliano Sala: David Henderson, the organizer of the flight sentenced to 18 months in prison

David Henderson, the intermediary who had organized the theft whose crash cost the life of the Argentinian footballer Emiliano Sala in 2019, was sentenced this Friday, November 12 to 18 months in prison for having hired a pilot whom he knew unqualified.

On October 28, after two weeks of hearing and seven hours of deliberation, the popular jury of a Cardiff court declared David Henderson, 67, guilty of imprudence or negligence likely to have endangered a device.

He had also pleaded guilty of transporting a passenger without valid authorization.He had since been released.The small private plane aboard which was the 28 -year -old and driver David Ibbotson had damaged in the Channel on January 21, 2019.

FC Nantes striker joined the Cardiff City club, where he had just been transferred for 17 million euros.The player's body, whose disappearance had moved the world of football, had been found in the carcass of the aircraft, more than two weeks after the accident, 67 meters deep.The 59 -year -old pilot's body was not found.

According to the accusation, the defendant was initially to pilot the aircraft but, on vacation in Paris with his wife, he had entrusted transport to David Ibbotson.The latter did not have a commercial pilot license, his qualification for this type of device had expired and he was not competent to fly at night.

Producing SMS at the hearing, prosecutor Martin Goudie had accused the intermediary of having acted "in his financial interest" and of knowing that the pilot was not qualified: "He ignored certain security requirements when thatarranged him and his commercial interests ".

Paperwork

The owner of Piper Malibu, Fay Keely, had also indicated during her testimony that she had explicitly asked in writing to the defendant to no longer use the services of David Ibbotson, after several infractions reported.

The defense of David Henderson had however refuted any "imprudence", claiming that the breaches of the regulations alleged against his client were "purely a question of paperwork" and that they had not led to really endanger theft.

His lawyer Stephen Spence had assured that the only difference between a commercial and private license was the possibility of charging passengers, without saying anything about the pilot's capacities, which had more than 3500 hours of flight to his credit.

In its final report published in March 2020, the British Air Accident Investigation Office had estimated that the pilot was "probably" poisoned with carbon monoxide by the engine exhaust system.

He had concluded that the pilot had lost control of the device during a maneuver carried out at too high speed, "probably" intended to avoid bad weather.The plane was launched at a speed of 270 miles per hour (435km/h) at the time of impact with water, leaving no hope of survival.

The remains of Emiliano Sala was repatriated in February 2019 in Argentina.Parents, friends, emissaries of Nantes, Bordeaux and Cardiff, inhabitants: they were hundreds to have come to bow, cry, put a hand on the coffin of the footballer in Progreso, the Argentinian village of 3000 inhabitants who had seen him grow.In France, tributes had also multiplied after the announcement of the disappearance of the footballer.