Pilot said plane was ‘dodgy’ prior to footballer Emiliano Sala’s fatal flight

The pilot of a plane in which footballer Emiliano Sala died described the aircraft as “dodgy” and vowed to wear his lifejacket prior to the fatal flight.

An inquest in March found the Argentina-born striker died from head and chest injuries but was deeply unconscious, having been poisoned by fumes from the Piper Malibu’s faulty exhaust system, on the evening of January 21st, 2019.

The 28-year-old player was flying from Nantes in France to Wales to join then Premier League club Cardiff City when the plane crashed in the English Channel close to Guernsey, also killing 59-year-old pilot David Ibbotson.

Newly released audio from the BBC’s Transfer: The Emiliano Sala Story podcast shows Mr Ibbotson appeared to have concerns about the plane following the outward flight from Cardiff to Nantes.

“I picked a footballer up from Cardiff. He’s just been bought from Nantes for, I think it was about, 20 million pounds worth or something,” he said in a voicemail to friend Kevin Jones.

“They’ve entrusted me to pick him up in a dodgy [aircraft].

“Normally I have my lifejacket between my seats but tomorrow I’m wearing my lifejacket, that’s for sure,” he added.

Mr Ibbotson, whose body has never been found, was only an amateur pilot and was not allowed to carry passengers or fly at night.

He told Mr Jones before departing Nantes that he heard “a bang” during the outward flight.

“I’m mid-Channel and ‘bang’,” the pilot said in the recording.

“I’m flying along and then ‘boom’. I thought, ‘what’s wrong?’ So I put everything forward and checked my parameters, everything was good and it was still flying, but it got your attention.”

He said: “That Malibu, occasionally you’ve got like a mist every so often. You can feel it, very, very low throughout