Yesterday, 28 January 2025, a jury reached their conclusion into the deaths of those onboard the helicopter which crashed at Leicester City Football Club in 2018. The victims were Khun Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha (Chairman of Leicester FC and CEO of King Power Group), the pilot Eric Swaffer and his partner Izabela Lechowicz, and passengers Nusara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punparev.

The inquest jury returned a conclusion of Accident, together with a supplemental narrative.

In accordance with the Senior Coroner’s directions, the jury adopted the conclusions of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) as to how the accident had occurred. They had heard evidence from a number of AAIB inspectors, who explained that the helicopter’s tail rotor bearing seized, leading to a sequence of events that made the helicopter incontrollable, and resulted in the crash just outside the LCFC football stadium. The jury noted that the pilot had taken all the appropriate actions available to him to try to regain control of the helicopter.

In accordance with a series of three High Court decisions (R(Secretary of State for Transport) v. HM Senior Coroner for Norfolk [2016] EWHC 2279 (Admin), HM Senior Coroner for West Sussex v Chief Constable of Sussex and Secretary of State for Transport [2022] EWHC 215 (QB), and (R (Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service) v HM Acting Senior Coroner for Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire [2023] EWHC 1669 (Admin) the inquest was conducted under “Norfolk” principles. The Senior Coroner accepted that in accordance with Norfolk principles the inquest was not entitled to reinvestigate the causes of the accident, but was bound to accept and adopt the findings made by the AAIB in its report.

The AAIB were represented throughout the inquest by David Manknell KC, instructed by the Government Legal Department.

There has been comprehensive coverage of the inquest’s conclusion in the press, including the following:

BBC

The Guardian

Sky

The Athletic

Independent