Briton tried for death of Emiliano Sala acted for money, says prosecutor

The British driver who is on trial for the death of Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala, in a plane crash in 2019, was accused this Tuesday (19) by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of acting out of financial interest when he organized an unauthorized flight.

The defendant, David Henderson, has already pleaded guilty to one of the two counts against him, “attempting to release a passenger without valid permission or authorization” before his trial begins in Cardiff, UK.

Now he is on trial for another, which he denies, “jeopardizing the safety of an aircraft”.

Prosecutor Martin Goudie explained to the court that “Henderson, as an operator (…) arranged two flights”, one on January 19, from Cardiff to Nantes, for the football player, who had just been hired by the Welsh club, to go to France, where he had played until then, to collect his belongings and say goodbye to his companions, and another one back two days later.

“He organized them because he had a financial interest,” he stressed.

In the dark of night and with complicated weather conditions, the private plane – a Piper PA-46 Malibu – that was taking the 28-year-old Argentine player to his new destination crashed into the English Channel waters on January 21, 2019.

Sala’s body, whose death shook the football world, was found in the plane’s wreckage more than two weeks after the accident, at 67 meters deep. The body of 59-year-old pilot David Ibbotson has never been located.

Henderson, who is also a pilot, acted negligently or recklessly in organizing these flights “when the aircraft was not authorized to do so and when it used an unqualified or competent pilot,” the prosecutor said.

Goudie explained that it was Henderson, 67, who was supposed to fly the plane that would take Sala, but he wasn’t available, so he arranged for Ibbotson to replace him.

“Ibbotson did not have a commercial pilot license, his N264DB aircraft rating had expired in November 2018, and he was not competent to fly in the weather conditions Henderson knew the flights would encounter,” he added.

The initial search for the player and pilot was suspended in the days following the disappearance of the device.

But on January 26, 2019, two days after the end of official operations, Sala’s family informed that they would go on on their own, hiring a private company thanks to funds obtained through an internet fundraising campaign.

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The family received the support of several players, among them Argentine soccer stars Lionel Messi, Gonzalo Higuaín and Nicolás Otamendi, which allowed them to find the remains of the striker, who was buried in his hometown of Progreso.

His sister Romina was especially involved in the search for the plane in the UK. But the blow was fatal for the father, Horacio Sala, who died of a heart attack three months after his son.