The morning of Tuesday,
22 January 2019 is etched on my memory as if it were yesterday.
Waking to the news that a light aircraft had
disappeared over the Channel en route from Nantes to Cardiff, my partner - a
Cardiff City fan - turned to me and said: "Our new striker was coming from
Nantes last night."
I dismissed the link. Surely there must be
lots of planes making that journey all the time?
But within the hour, BBC Wales football
correspondent Rob Phillips reported Cardiff were "seeking
clarification" about the missing plane and there was "genuine
concern" at the club.
Argentine Emiliano Sala had signed for Cardiff
just three days earlier in a club record £15m transfer from FC Nantes. As that
Tuesday unfolded, instead of welcoming their much-anticipated new striker to a
training session, they were instead facing a barrage of enquiries from the
world's media about an unfolding tragedy.
It was soon confirmed Sala was on the Piper
Malibu plane - piloted, it would emerge over the next 48 hours, by David
Ibbotson - when it disappeared from radar north of the Channel Islands, just
over an hour after take-off from Nantes Atlantique Airport. At that time, there
were no signs of wreckage.
Few stories I've covered as a journalist
captured the public's attention the way this one seemed to.
Sala was a prolific striker revered by Nantes
supporters. For Cardiff fans he was the longed-for talismanic figure who might
help save their struggling team. He was a talented, adored young footballer
tragically lost just as his Premier League career was about to begin.
The level of interest in the story was such
that my investigations team colleague Kayley Thomas and I were asked to start
looking into the circumstances around the flight. The result is the BBC Sounds
and BBC Radio Wales podcast series: Transfer: The Emiliano Sala Story. You
can listen to episodes here
As we began researching, it became clear this
was a story that wouldn't be leaving the headlines any time soon.
And as the fourth anniversary of the crash approaches, so it has proved.
When Emiliano Sala was born, a month
prematurely, on 31 October 1990, his parents were warned he might never be able
to run because of the effect on his respiratory system. But he exceeded all
expectations, growing into a healthy and energetic child, close to his younger
siblings Romina and Dario.
At the age of four, Sala's mother Mercedes
Taffarel took him to a local football club, San Martin de Progreso, initially
wearing a pair of trainers as the family couldn't afford football boots.
His passion for the sport flourished and when
football scouts spotted his potential aged 15 he decided to move 200km away to
train with an Argentine football college in San Francisco, in Cordoba province.
"He told me that I should let him go;
that all he wanted in his life was to kick a ball and if I didn't let him, I
would be killing him inside," Mercedes said in a poignant statement to his
inquest earlier this year.
San Francisco's connections with European
clubs helped Sala pursue his dream of playing the game at a higher level.
Stints with teams in Spain, Portugal and France followed before he was signed
by FC Nantes in 2015. There he scored 48 goals in 133 appearances over three
seasons, making him a fan favourite - and also a target for management to sell
on.
When Cardiff's manager at the time, Neil
Warnock, saw him play against Marseille at the beginning of December 2018 -
scoring one goal and setting up another in a 3-2 Nantes victory - he knew he'd
found his new striker.
Negotiations began - led by agent Mark McKay,
whose company Mercato Sports had the mandate from Nantes to sell Sala. A chain
of events that would lead to catastrophe was set in motion.
When Kayley and I visited Nantes for the first
time in December 2019, as the first anniversary of Sala's death approached, it
was clear from conversations with his friends that he was initially unsure
about the move to Cardiff.
Marie-Jeanne Munos Castelleanos welcomed us
into her cosy bungalow, plying us with coffee and chocolates and chatting away
warmly.
Describing herself variously as a surrogate
mother or mental coach to Sala, she showed us the many photographs and other
mementoes of their friendship. She generously shared voice messages he'd sent
her in which he alluded to reservations about the transfer.
"From the start of it all, he hadn't
properly decided whether he was even going to Cardiff," Marie-Jeanne told
us.
"His mum wanted him to go, but he was
worried because he was used to life in Nantes, he had his routine and all that.
"He'd be going to another country, where
he didn't know the language. He was a bit worried about it."
Mercedes' statement to the inquest into her
son's death also referred to him feeling under pressure about the move, which
she said was pursued by the owner of Nantes, Waldemar Kita, for financial
reasons "against the wishes of coaching staff and fans".
The transfer fee of £15m was a record for both
Nantes and Cardiff.
Sala lived in the small town of Carquefou - a
drive of 40 minutes or so outside Nantes. Locals were well used to seeing him
as he went about his business; shopping in the supermarket, having a drink or
meal in his favourite bar, getting a haircut or worshipping in the local
church.
The picture that emerged during our visit was
far removed from the typical image of a star footballer. Here was someone who
spent much of his free time walking his rescue dog, Nala, or hanging out with
hairdresser Jean-Philippe Roussel and his wife Lydie, who had become close
friends.
Roussel says: "He knew that leaving
Nantes could be a good career move, but was he in favour going to Cardiff? No…
he was being pushed out, to be honest."
Nantes told the Transfer podcast series that
Sala chose to leave of his own free will "after many great years"
there.
Nantes supporter Louis Chene, who lives in the
centre of Carquefou, would sometimes bump into Sala and chat to him about the
club's fortunes. He recalls Sala going around the town saying goodbye to
everyone when he knew he was leaving.
"He went down the street and at every
little shop he knew, he went in," Chene says. "He wanted to say a
personal goodbye to people."
Frederic Happe, a journalist with Agence
France Presse who had followed Sala's career in France, says: "He really
was the most likeable person you could imagine. He was one of the few players
who asked you how you were when you came into the conference room: 'Hi chaps,
how are you doing?' Small details, things players at a certain level tend to
forget."
These small but telling details gave us a rare
and invaluable insight into a life some would be quick to dismiss as privileged
but which we came to realise was at the mercy of the whims of others; be it
agents seeking new transfer targets, or football club owners seizing a chance
to make money from their star striker.
The very last photograph Sala posted on his
Instagram page - taken just hours before the crash - is captioned: 'La Ultima
Ciao' (The Last Goodbye).
Sala is smiling with an arm around one
team-mate as the rest of the Nantes side huddle in. Among them is his best
friend at the club, Nicolas Pallois, who with his wife would drive him to the
airport that evening and, some weeks later, travel to Argentina for his
funeral.
When Kayley and I visited Nantes for the first
time in December 2019, as the first anniversary of Sala's death approached, it
was clear from conversations with his friends that he was initially unsure
about the move to Cardiff.
Marie-Jeanne Munos Castelleanos welcomed us
into her cosy bungalow, plying us with coffee and chocolates and chatting away
warmly.
Describing herself variously as a surrogate
mother or mental coach to Sala, she showed us the many photographs and other
mementoes of their friendship. She generously shared voice messages he'd sent
her in which he alluded to reservations about the transfer.
"From the start of it all, he hadn't
properly decided whether he was even going to Cardiff," Marie-Jeanne told
us.
"His mum wanted him to go, but he was
worried because he was used to life in Nantes, he had his routine and all that.
"He'd be going to another country, where
he didn't know the language. He was a bit worried about it."
Mercedes' statement to the inquest into her
son's death also referred to him feeling under pressure about the move, which
she said was pursued by the owner of Nantes, Waldemar Kita, for financial
reasons "against the wishes of coaching staff and fans".
The transfer fee of £15m was a record for both
Nantes and Cardiff.
Sala lived in the small town of Carquefou - a
drive of 40 minutes or so outside Nantes. Locals were well used to seeing him
as he went about his business; shopping in the supermarket, having a drink or
meal in his favourite bar, getting a haircut or worshipping in the local
church.
The picture that emerged during our visit was
far removed from the typical image of a star footballer. Here was someone who
spent much of his free time walking his rescue dog, Nala, or hanging out with
hairdresser Jean-Philippe Roussel and his wife Lydie, who had become close
friends.
Roussel says: "He knew that leaving
Nantes could be a good career move, but was he in favour going to Cardiff? No…
he was being pushed out, to be honest."
Nantes told the Transfer podcast series that
Sala chose to leave of his own free will "after many great years"
there.
Nantes supporter Louis Chene, who lives in the
centre of Carquefou, would sometimes bump into Sala and chat to him about the
club's fortunes. He recalls Sala going around the town saying goodbye to
everyone when he knew he was leaving.
"He went down the street and at every
little shop he knew, he went in," Chene says. "He wanted to say a
personal goodbye to people."
Frederic Happe, a journalist with Agence
France Presse who had followed Sala's career in France, says: "He really
was the most likeable person you could imagine. He was one of the few players
who asked you how you were when you came into the conference room: 'Hi chaps,
how are you doing?' Small details, things players at a certain level tend to
forget."
These small but telling details gave us a rare
and invaluable insight into a life some would be quick to dismiss as privileged
but which we came to realise was at the mercy of the whims of others; be it
agents seeking new transfer targets, or football club owners seizing a chance
to make money from their star striker.
The very last photograph Sala posted on his
Instagram page - taken just hours before the crash - is captioned: 'La Ultima
Ciao' (The Last Goodbye).
Sala is smiling with an arm around one
team-mate as the rest of the Nantes side huddle in. Among them is his best
friend at the club, Nicolas Pallois, who with his wife would drive him to the
airport that evening and, some weeks later, travel to Argentina for his
funeral.
The drive and determination of shipwreck
hunter David Mearns turned out to be pivotal to determining the cause of the
crash.
Without his involvement it's likely the
wreckage of the plane - and Sala's body - would never have been found.
Ibbotson's body has not been found.
We first met Mearns back in summer 2019. His
passion was evident as he told us of his desire to spare families of those lost
in such accidents the "double tragedy" of not having a body to bury.
"You're doing this on behalf of them. You
volunteered and gave your time to do this, and you want to find him for
them," he said.
He recalled telling Sala's mother: "I'll
find him… I'll find the plane and hopefully he's there."
Mearns drove the search for the wreckage on
behalf of the Sala family after hundreds of thousands of pounds were raised
through a fundraising campaign.
His survey vessel found the plane's resting
place on the seabed in a joint mission with the Air Accidents Investigation
Branch in early February 2019.
A few days later, a painstaking operation by a
specialist ROV (remotely operated vehicle) team working in shifts managed to
recover Sala's body, which had become trapped in the wreckage, and it was
brought ashore at Portland in Dorset.
Mearns later returned to the crash site on
behalf of the Ibbotson family, but found no trace of the pilot.
It was a late hunch on the part of the home
office pathologist in the case, Dr Basil Purdue, that led to toxicological
testing being done on Sala's body and the surprise discovery of dangerously high
carbon monoxide levels in his blood.
They found that Sala would have been deeply
unconscious from carbon monoxide poisoning - probably leaking from the plane's
exhaust system - and that Ibbotson would likely have been affected too, though
to a lesser degree.
Ibbotson's final communication with air
traffic control was lucid and he was actively flying the plane in its final
moments, leading investigators to believe a dramatic leak of carbon monoxide
into the cabin must have occurred in those ensuing four minutes before the
crash.
This shifted the focus of the investigation
from pilot error towards the condition of the plane - and those responsible for
its maintenance.
Investigations by Dorset Police and the Civil
Aviation Authority followed, and in June 2019 plane operator Henderson was
arrested at his home in York.
At Cardiff Crown Court in October 2021,
Henderson pleaded guilty to trying to arrange a flight for a passenger without
permission or authorisation, and was convicted after a trial of recklessly endangering
the safety of an aircraft in the way he'd organised the flight for Willie
McKay.
Sentencing him to 18 months' imprisonment, the
judge in the case said Henderson had a "cavalier attitude" to safety
regulations, that he was motivated by profit and that messaging between him and
Ibbotson in the run-up to the flight revealed his "lurking doubt"
that the amateur pilot wasn't up to the job.
In February 2022, the inquest into Sala's
death finally began in Bournemouth.
His younger brother Dario attended in person
for the first week and then remotely via video link, an interpreter always at
his side.
Speaking to the BBC's Transfer podcast series,
he recalled the happy childhood spent with his brother and spoke of the impact
of his death.
"It's affected us so much," he said.
"He had a very important role within the family. We were always very
close, now it's hard looking to the future knowing he's not there if I want to
ask him something or get his advice… it's not easy."
In a statement read out after the inquest,
Sala family lawyer Daniel Machover said: "This inquest has exposed the
complex facts leading to Emiliano's untimely death. It has shone a bright light
on many of the missed opportunities in the worlds of football and aviation to
prevent his tragic death."
The family welcomed the coroner's decision to
issue a Prevention of Future Deaths report highlighting her concerns about the
safety issues arising from the case, adding: "No family should have to go
through grief from a similar avoidable accident."
Radar contact was lost when the aircraft was 22 nautical
miles (40 km) north-north-west of Guernsey
'Money with a Capital M' was the title we gave
one episode of the podcast series. It references a quote from the Sala family
barrister about an email Willie McKay sent to Sala, persuading him to consider
Cardiff City's offer, in which the 'm' of 'money' was capitalised at every
mention.
But it might have applied to almost any aspect
of this story, where money was seemingly being made from him at every turn: as
a footballing asset, as a passenger, as a much-needed goalscorer to keep a
struggling club in the Premier League with all the financial benefits that
brings.
In September 2019, football's governing body
Fifa ruled Cardiff should pay Nantes the first £5m instalment of the transfer
fee or face a three-window transfer ban.
Cardiff appealed to the Court of Arbitration
for Sport (Cas) in Switzerland, which in August 2022 upheld Fifa's ruling,
confirming Sala was a Cardiff player at the time of his death.
Cardiff had argued the transfer wasn't
complete - partly because Sala wasn't yet registered as a Premier League
player. But Cas agreed with Fifa; because Sala had been registered with the
Welsh Football Association as a Cardiff player, the transfer was complete.
The full judgement from Cas also revealed the
Premier League initially rejected Sala's registration because of mistakes
Cardiff had made in his employment contract.
As a result, while Sala was in the Piper
Malibu flying to Cardiff, his agent Meissa N'Diaye was involved in amending his
contract with the club. The new paperwork was finalised just eight minutes
before the plane disappeared from radar.
Cardiff have subsequently challenged the Cas
judgement by lodging a further appeal to the Swiss Federal Court. If this
fails, the club has said it will take civil action against those involved in
organising the flight "for damages to recover its losses. This will
include FC Nantes, and its agents."
A statement released following the Cas
judgment added: "All our thoughts must continue to be with Emiliano's
family, who are now supported financially by the trust the club put in place
for them."
Appearing on the Transfer podcast series, the Guardian's investigations reporter David Conn said: "Whatever the technical rights are, whatever the legal niceties are, it's quite a stain on football's image, reputation and honour that this unseemly row has been going on for so long after a wonderful young man suffered this horrendous death."
Almost four years on, the impact of Sala's
death continues to ripple out.
His father Horacio died from a heart attack
three months after the crash, aged 58. He was separated from Sala's mother and
living with a new partner. Friends said he was heartbroken and struggling to
come to terms with the loss of his son.
At the inquest into Sala's death, his mother
Mercedes said the family miss him "each day like the first day".
She added: "No-one can bring Emi back to
us, but we ask for justice, so Emi can rest in peace and give us a little peace
of mind knowing that we did everything we could so that similar deaths are prevented
in future."
Sala's sister Romina, a new mother herself
when she travelled to the UK to urge the authorities to keep searching for her
brother, has struggled emotionally since the tragedy.
Meanwhile, civil actions are ongoing on behalf
of the Sala family against a number of parties.
The streets of Progreso were packed when 'El
Emi' - as the local boy made good was known there - came home to be laid to
rest.
Now he watches over them from the mural
painted by Argentine artist Gabriel Griffa at his old club St Martin de
Progreso, whose home ground has since been renamed the Emiliano Sala Stadium.
In spring 2022 the artist travelled to
Carquefou to paint another mural of Emiliano there, organised by Marie-Jeanne,
the Roussels and other friends and fans.
Two towns, many hundreds of miles apart but
forever connected by this talented, popular and well-loved young man who will
never be forgotten.
