Reply With QuoteI've just been speaking to a light aircraft pilot and they were aghast at the circumstances (35-year-old, single-engine plane, part-time pilot, in winter, at night) of this flight.
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Quote from pilots forum
"It is understood Mr Ibbotson, had been hired along with the Norfolk-registered single engine plane, by Sala’s representatives to fly the player to Cardiff after he had said his farewells to team-mates at his old club Nantes.
Mr Ibbotson, who worked as a gas engineer based in Crowle, is believed to have had extensive experience carrying parachute enthusiasts on flights from private airfields.
One picture shows him him at the controls of a light aircraft in a selfie with a parachute jumper."
Ideal chap to be flying a complex single at night, IFR in dodgy icing conditions. Sala's reps and the owner of the aircraft have some serious questions to answer if this is true. After 30 years as a professional pilot with all the checks you have to pass along the way I can't believe that such stupidity is still going on. And organisations like Wingly, Grant Shaps red tape challenge and the supine attitude of the CAA have done nothing to enhance safety.
I am so angry at the death of Mr Sala. Save a few quid, probably break any number of laws, kill someone. What a disgusting waste of life and talent.
I've just been speaking to a light aircraft pilot and they were aghast at the circumstances (35-year-old, single-engine plane, part-time pilot, in winter, at night) of this flight.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/826101...dave-ibbotson/
Emiliano Sala’s Brit pilot admitted he was ‘a little bit rusty’ and kept flying ‘too high’ hours before doomed plane crashed in Channel
It means they think they’re dead. It’s no longer a rescue.Originally Posted by Der Kaiser
It is registered in the U.S.
it is a US registered plane from 1984... but to get around the rules of non US owner ship they set up 'lease' companies and this one is in Norfolk. Probably loads of planes registered there... gets around UK rules for commercial as well...... pilots etc
Would like to also pass my thoughts onto Mr Ibbotson and his family/friends, he must have been in a terrifying situation and I am sure he did everything in his power to protect the life of his passenger, unfortunately if there are failures in safety management as we all know they usually fall higher up in the chain.
I see. Thanks for that. It's more complicated than it would seem.
An inexperienced pilot and a 24 year old plane owned by an agent who would probably have made millions from the transfer deal and 2 presumed deaths. The agent will have questions to answer when all this unravels. It's too early for recriminations but at some point supporters will feel angry about why Sala was allowed to be transported in this way. Certainly there will be questions to be answered when the time is right.
RNLI boat now docked in Alderney Harbour and the SAR helicopter heading back to the South Coast.
I've been tracking most of the vehicles throughout the day (in between not doing much work) and in fairness they are covering a lot of sea. It is a big old sea though and I'm just not feeling optimistic anymore.
Losing faith and getting angry as to why this has happened.
Anger is going to kick in after grief, I trust the club to back his family both financially & spiritually in the quest to find out the why & wherefores of this tragedy. I know it’s early days for the likes of me to shout the odds but it seems a right Micky Mouse way for anyone to fly at night across the English Channel in winter having heard a description of the aircraft, rephrase that it’s a right Micky Mouse way for anyone to fly anywhere in the thing. Hope when the dust settles there’ll be appropriate action taken, the whole travel procedure was completely & utterly amateur, I despair.
The search has been suspended for tonight and a decision will be made tomorrow whether they continue the search.
Gut feeling says they won’t go for another search.
Would’ve been 60 hours by the time they go again.
Always amazes me how in this day anything can just go missing. Hope seems to have been completely lost if it of course wasn't last night.
It is, isn’t it. Not sure if it’s a busy part of the channel but you’d have thought that every ship/boat in the area would have been radioed to keep a look out for any signs, yet no reports of anything. As I say I don’t know if there is much traffic around the suspected area.
There are nearly 63,000 viewings of this thread which is astonishing. Has anything been said by Sala’s agent? It looks like he has questions to answer.
Didn't know we had McKays kids at the club
He has, the club has been quite forthcoming, there was the speculation that the plane belonged to Vincent Tan, this was nipped in the bud quite quickly. It’s been stated that the flight had been arranged by the agent, even now that the plane was owned by a person involved in the deal. The silence is deafening, advice obviously being taken before making a statement. Very early, raw days yet explanations will be needed pretty soon, the whole procedure seemed to be risky. Two men, only one a pilot, flying over the English Channel on a January night, it’s akin to a POW escape story. The whole scenario is extremely surreal.
As others have said there is no way I would set foot on a light aircraft particularly on an evening in the middle of winter. It just seemed so unnecessary.
so sad so so gutting...
clutching for any glimmer of a miracle but deep down i think we all know...
i very much doubt i would get on an aircraft like that flying from Cardiff to Birmingham on a glorious sunny day least of all travelling from Nantes to Cardiff in the middle of winter and at night
i remember travelling from Cardiff to dublin on an Air Cymru twin propelled plane and that was bad enough
when i saw the plane he was travelling in , i just thought to myself why the **** would you get on that travelling that sort of distance
a glib comment, but actually pretty accurate..
Was in two minds to make this comment as it does sound a bit ‘throwaway’ but thank you AQM for taking it in the context I intended. The more I think about the whole thing surrounding the trip, the more and more dumbfounded I am that it actually happened and was allowed to happen.
So it would now appear that our £15m record signing was being flown to Cardiff in a 35 year old piston aircraft at night ,in known icing conditions ,over water, in the depth of winter by a gas engineer who does parachute dropping on the weekends.
He held no commercial flying licence, had no instrument rating to allow him to fly in the airway system in controlled airspace,and in cloud if required.
He also admitted his instrument flying skills were at best “rusty”
Probably No immersion suits were being worn which they should have been for such a flight. I doubt he was even wearing a life jacket.
At best he was an enthusiastic amateur yet was entrusted by Emilio's agent to fly him to his new home despite being woefully under qualified to do so.
As a professsional pilot words fail me.
The more I read about the tragic event , the more I’m equally saddened and angry about how this situation was allowed to happen and I would also question the legality of the flight especially If the pilot had received payment to operate the flight on the agents behalf.
Illegal on an aircraft operated on a private certificate of airworthiness category,and by a pilot who only held a private pilots licence.
If proved true this will have further implications for the aircrafts owner.
In order to save a few pennies the players agent has failed in his duty of care for his client.
The whole shoddy affair reeks of rank amateurism.
Emilio and his family deserved better.
I wonder what the response of anyone taking a flight across water to wear an immersion suit would have been.
It puts the risks into perspective and wholly unjustifiable in 2019.
Someone let Sala, his parents and his family down in the worst possible way.
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