David Henderson, the businessman who organised the flight that crashed and led to the death of soccer player Emiliano Sala, was on Friday sentenced to 18 months in prison by the Cardiff Crown Court, local media reported.
Henderson, 67, was accused of failing to follow safety protocols that caused the death of 28-year-old Argentine Sala and pilot David Ibbotson when their plane crashed into the English Channel on a flight from Nantes to Cardiff in January 2019.
#UPDATE The businessman who organised the 2019 flight that crashed in the Channel, killing Argentine footballer #EmilianoSala, was on Friday jailed for 18 months for flouting safety rules https://t.co/3pVzySSiaD pic.twitter.com/UooFebfON2
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 12, 2021
David Henderson has been jailed for 18 months for endangering the aircraft on which footballer Emiliano Sala and pilot David Ibbotson were travelling. pic.twitter.com/AYfQbyR4Un
— Football Tweet ⚽ (@Football__Tweet) November 12, 2021
Last month, he was found guilty by the court of endangering the safety of the aircraft.
The body of Sala, who had signed for Cardiff City in a $20.10 million transfer only days earlier, was found a month later, while Ibbotson's has still not been recovered.
The trial heard that Ibbotson, who regularly flew for Henderson, did not hold a commercial pilot's licence or a qualification to fly at night.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru Editing by Toby Davis)
