Leicester City owner ‘may have survived helicopter crash if fire had not flared’
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The Leicester City Football Club owner and three others who were killed in a helicopter crash outside the King Power Stadium may have survived if the aircraft had not caught fire, an inquest has heard. Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, referred to in court as Khun Vichai, died on October 27 2018 when his helicopter, a Leonardo AW169, spun out of control and burst into flames after crashing while it was leaving the stadium after a match.
An inquest at Leicester City Hall is also looking into the deaths of the helicopter’s pilot Eric Swaffer, his partner Izabela Lechowicz, and passengers Nusara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare. During a hearing on Wednesday, a jury was told that the victims would have succumbed to the fumes “rapidly” causing them to lose consciousness.
Dr Michael Biggs, a forensic pathologist who completed post-mortem examinations for all five people, told the hearing that the cause of death for four of them, including Khun Vichai, was inhalation of smoke. Dr Biggs told the hearing: “It was a very intense fire in an enclosed space, the occupants would have succumbed quickly to the effects of the smoke inhalation.”.
The pathologist added that the four who died from the smoke also had some minor traumatic injuries, including lower spine fractures, which are consistent with “crush fractures”, but these would not have been fatal. He said: “There is nothing of the other four individuals that inevitably would have been fatal. It is entirely possible, indeed likely, that had it not have been for the fire, they (the injuries) would have been survivable.”.
