The pilot of the plane carrying footballer Emiliano Sala dropped out of his commercial flying course before it was completed, records show.
David Ibbotson, 59, was not licensed to carry paying passengers, according to the BBC – fuelling speculation the flight was illegal.
Mr Ibbotson of Crowle, Lincolnshire, is still missing more than a month after the plane he piloted crashed into the English Channel on January 21 while carrying the Cardiff City footballer.
Mr Ibbotson studied for his commercial pilot’s licence (CPL) at Cranfield Aviation Training School in Luton.
David Ibbotson(pictured with his wife, Nora), 59, was not licensed to carry paying passengers, having not completed his theoretical training
He started the course in December 2012 and dropped out in July 2014 after failing to complete his theoretical training, it’s claimed.
Doctor Stuart E Smith, head of training for the school, told the BBC the pilot had contacted him in 2016 to discuss resuming training, but it was never followed up.
He said: ‘It is common for middle-aged private pilots to undertake the CPL theoretical knowledge course so that they may then complete CPL flight training and be able to earn money as a pilot or flight instructor.’
The jet crashed mid-way through its 740-mile journey from Nantes, France, to Cardiff where 28-year-old striker Emiliano Sala was due to start training with his new club Cardiff City
Martin Robinson, chef executive of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, said the organisers were to blame for not checking if Mr Ibbotson was properly qualified.
He said: ‘It’s the responsibility of the person who organised the flight to have a suitably qualified pilot at the controls and to ensure the pilot had sufficient flying experience for this kind of flight and for the weather conditions that may be encountered.
‘Mr Sala would have had no knowledge of David Ibbotson’s licence but the person organising it should have known about that. They’ve let this man down.’
Sala’s agent Willie McKay claims pilot David Henderson arranged the flight to transport Sala from Nantes to his new club in Cardiff.
‘He said he couldn’t do it himself but he was going to get someone. I trusted David, I had no reason not to,’ he said.
‘When you phone for a taxi you don’t ask him if he has a driving licence.
The body of passenger Sala was recovered on February 6 but Mr Ibbotson has still not been found.
That is despite two expert divers spending 20 minutes 220ft underwater searching the wrecked single-engine Piper PA-46.
David Mearns, a shipwreck hunting expert who assisted in the search that found Sala’s body, revealed a helicopter also searched over the Channel Islands but there was no sign of the pilot.
He tweeted: ‘Returning to Guernsey having completed this morning a thorough search of the Piper Malibu wreckage, two highly experienced technical divers spent 20 mins searching & filming the plane, sadly there was absolutely no sign of the pilot David Ibbotson.
Nearly £250,000 has been raised by Mr Ibbotson’s family to fund a second search for the missing pilot through an online fundraising campaign.
The plane, which took 24 seconds to plummet into the English Channel at 90mph, still lies in three pieces on the sea bed off the coast of Guernsey in the English Channel.
All attempts to recover it have been hampered by bad weather.
The jet crashed mid-way through its 740-mile journey from Nantes, France, to Cardiff where the 28-year-old was due to start training with his new club Cardiff City.
Argentinian footballer Sala had signed for Cardiff City from French club Nantes for £15 million on January 18.
Mr Ibbotson had used a term in his pilot licence that allowed him to fly passengers in the European Union on a cost-sharing basis to fly Sala to the city club.
But pilots with his licence ‘must have a bona fide purpose for making the flight’, according to the AAIB.
And an investigation into the crash will focus on the validity of the pilot’s licence.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) named ‘regulatory requirements’ as one of four areas in which it will carry out further work before publishing its final report.