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Leicester City helicopter crash: Heart-breaking final words of pilot & cause of 'tragic accident' revealed in new official report

A report from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), that has taken five years to compile, has revealed the cause of the crash was mechanical failure after a tail rotor bearing seized.

The crash was described as being "inevitable" as the failure in the bearing caused a steep right turn and the aircraft then spun out of control. Pilot Eric Swaffer could do "very little" to prevent the crash and was cleared of any errors.

As per the BBC, the helicopter's voice recordings also revealed the pilot's final words before the helicopter crashed. "I've no idea what's going on," he said shortly before the aircraft spun to the ground and landed on a concrete step.

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Mr Swaffer's partner Izabela Roza Lechowicz, an experienced pilot herself, was also killed in the crash along with Nusara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare - two of Mr Srivaddhanaprabha's staff members.

The report also found that four of the five passengers survived the initial crash but not a subsequent fire that engulfed the wreckage in less than a minute.

Chief inspector of air accidents Crispin Orr confirmed in a statement that the crash was an accident and offered his condolences to those affected.

"This was a tragic accident in which five people sadly lost their lives. Our thoughts are with their loved ones, and everyone affected," he said. “The nature of the failure, in the tail rotor, was really very serious, of a sort that left them in a very poor situation. There was nothing more that the pilot could do."

Mr Srivaddhanaprabha bought Leicester in 2010 for a reported fee of £38 million and became a legend within the city after overseeing a fairy-tale Premier League triumph in 2016.

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