Dave Ibbotson was not meant to be piloting the plane that went missing over the Channel Islands last week carrying Cardiff City’s record signing Emiliano Sala.
A private search for the Piper Malibu, started after a crowdfunding campaign reached it’s €300,000 target, is currently taking place, after Guernsey Police called off the official search after three days.
Ibbotson and Sala were aboard the aircraft, which was flying from France back to Cardiff after Sala had visited former team Nantes to say his goodbyes.
Ibbotson is understood to have not had the correct certificate to control an aircraft carrying paying customers, while the privately licensed pilot told a friend on social media that he was a ‘bit rusty’ with the Piper Malibu’s control systems.
And it has now been revealed that a different pilot was requested to fly Sala back to Wales.
Agent Willie McKay, who oversaw Sala’s transfer to Cardiff, told French news outlet L’Equipe he asked for Dave Henderson, a highly experienced international commercial pilot to fly the aircraft, but he was unavailable and passed the job onto Ibbotson.
Cardiff had planned to put Sala on a commercial flight from Nantes, but McKay told the club: “When you spend €17m on a footballer, you don’t put him on an EasyJet flight.”
An underwater search is due to take place of a four square nautical mile area near France’s Cotentin Peninsula after two seat cushions were found near Surtainville. It is claimed the cushions are ‘likely’ to have come from the aircraft carrying Sala and Ibbotson.