LEICESTER, United Kingdom, January 27, 2025 – A jury has retired to begin its deliberations in the inquest into the deaths of five people killed in a helicopter crash outside Leicester City’s King Power Stadium.
Foxes chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was killed alongside fellow passengers Kaveporn Punpare, Nusara Suknamai, pilot Eric Swaffer and his partner Izabela Roza Lechowicz on 27 October 2018.
On Monday, coroner Catherine Mason addressed the jury as the inquest entered a third week at Leicester’s City Hall.
Prof Mason called the crash a “terrible tragedy”, as she instructed the jury that only an accidental conclusion could be reached.
She said: “The helicopter crash was a terrible tragedy that cost the lives of five people.
“These were remarkable individuals who were greatly loved and will be terribly missed.
“This hearing is to explain to the world how they came to die.”
She told the 11 jurors that they will answer four questions. Who was each deceased person? When did they die? Where did they die? And, how did they come by their death?
“That should not include such matters as systems, processes, and precautions that might have led to the helicopter and the bearing being designed differently”, she added.
The coroner explained that the identities of the deceased and the medical cause of their deaths were not in dispute.
Pathologist Dr Michael Biggs carried out post-mortem examinations on each of the five who died, and told the inquest previously that Ms Lechowicz died from injuries sustained from the impact of the crash.
He added the other four people on board would have died “quite rapidly” from smoke inhalation from the fire that broke out after the helicopter crashed outside the stadium, after the Foxes drew 1-1 with West Ham United.
Prof Mason also instructed the jury that its conclusions into where, when and how the five came to die could not legally dispute the findings of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).
An AAIB report, published in September 2023, found the crash was “inevitable” after a bearing failed setting in motion a sequence of mechanical failures shortly after take-off from the centre circle.
The jury was told that the report made it clear the pilot did “nothing wrong” and attempted to save everyone on board.
The court heard Mr Swaffer’s actions reduced the rate of the helicopter’s spin while he tried to “cushion” its impact in disorientating conditions, but “a crash landing was inevitable”.
