The Leicester City accident could not have been avoided by the pilot’s investigation

By Jamie Freed

(Reuters) – The pilot was not able to recover from the tail rotor failure of a helicopter that crashed in 2018, killing then-owner of Leicester City football club Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, Britain’s accident investigator said on Wednesday. aviation.

Pilot Eric Swaffer, his partner Izabela Roza Lechowicz and two Vichai crew members, Nusara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare, also died in the crash on October 27, 2018, shortly after takeoff from King Power Stadium in the central English city of Leicester . following a Premier League match.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said the helicopter was spinning out of control and rapidly descending at low altitude near buildings at night after the tail rotor failed. The tail rotor counteracts the torque of the helicopter’s main rotor to ensure that the aircraft does not spin out of control.

“The investigation found that, in the prevailing circumstances, the loss of control over the vice was irrecoverable,” the UK’s AAIB said in its final report on the accident.

However, the pilot managed to land softly enough for four of the five people on board to survive the impact, according to post-mortem examinations, only for them to be killed by the fire.

“Their reported injuries would, however, have prevented them from being able to escape from the helicopter without external assistance given the position in which it came to rest,” the AAIB said.

Leicester City chief executive Susan Whelan said the club welcomed the publication of the report “in the hope that it will make a positive contribution to the continued development of future standards and safety in aviation”.

Leicester won the English Premier League in 2016 under the ownership of Thai tycoon Vichai, who was a popular figure among his fans.

FUEL LEAKAGE

The helicopter was on its left side and the fuel tanks were damaged, resulting in a major leak that quickly ignited, the report said.

Police officers arrived within a minute but were unable to break the helicopter’s windscreen with batons and other hand-held equipment as the aircraft burned, the AAIB said. The fire killed those on board, the report said.

Investigators found that bearing problems in the Leonardo AW169 helicopter’s tail rotor started a sequence of failures that led to the crash.

Italy’s Leonardo has since issued 16 service bulletins for the model, including additional inspection requirements, the report said.

Leonardo said in a statement that the AW169 remained safe to fly.

“More than 150 AW169s continue to operate safely in more than 30 countries, logging more than 150,000 flight hours to date across the global fleet,” it said, adding that the fleet was not subject to any landing or airworthiness restrictions from the accident.

“It is important to note that … the substantial work undertaken over five years of analysis, data gathering, investigation and testing by the AAIB investigation has only been able to identify a ‘probable’ cause of the failure,” it added.

Litigation specialists Stewarts, which represents the families of Vichai, Swaffer and Lechowicz, said the report showed there was nothing the pilot could have done to prevent the crash.

Stewarts said it has already started a lawsuit in Italy against Leonardo on behalf of Swaffer and Lechowicz’s families, and Vichai’s family is also considering a legal appeal.

“I am deeply saddened by the turn of events,” Vichai’s son Aiyawatt said in a statement. “Nearly five years after my father’s death, this report provides troubling evidence against Leonardo.”

The AAIB report said the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) had also published new airworthiness directives for Leonardo’s AW169 and AW189 models.

The report also provided eight more recommendations to EASA, including changes to its certification requirements and how it assesses and mitigates potential catastrophic failures.

(Reporting by Jamie Freed in Sydney; Additional reporting by Janina Nuno Rios and Angelica Medina in Mexico City Hritika Sharma in Hyderabad and Keith Weir in London; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Alexander Smith)