LONDON - The family of former King Power chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who died in a helicopter crash in 2018, has brought a legal action against the Italian helicopter manufacturer Leonardo SpA valued at £2.15 billion (US$2.7 billion) in a London court.
The suit, which seeks recompense for loss of earnings and other damages, represented the largest fatal accident claim in English history, the family said in a statement issued on Friday.
Leonardo did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Vichai, 60, was the owner of Leicester City football club, buying the English Premier League side in 2010. Leicester shocked the football world by winning the Premier League title in 2016.
Vichai, who made his fortune building the King Power duty-free business in Thailand, was one of five people who died shortly after takeoff outside King Power Stadium in Leicester following a football match on Oct 27, 2018.
Pilot Eric Swaffer, his partner Izabela Roza Lechowicz and two members of Vichai’s staff, Nusara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare, were also killed.
In a report released in 2023, Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) found that it was not possible for the pilot to recover from a tail rotor failure on the Leonardo AW169 helicopter owned by Vichai.
Leonardo said following the report that its AW169 helicopters remained safe to fly and that the AAIB had concluded it complied with all regulatory requirements in the design and manufacture of the aircraft. (Story continues below)
Investigators inspect the wreckage of the helicopter belonging to Leicester City owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha after it crashed outside King Power Stadium in Leicester, England on Oct 27, 2018. (Photo: Reuters)
‘Sequence of failures’
However, the Srivaddhanaprabha family alleges the helicopter manufacturer is liable for Vichai’s death.
They point to the finding in the AAIB report that the crash was caused by the seizure of a key component located in the tail rotor, which Leonardo had identified in the design phase as being critical, and its failure catastrophic.
"This failure prompted a sequence of further failures that drove the helicopter into an uncontrollable and accelerating spin until it crashed and erupted into flames," the statement said.
The claim alleges the seizure of the component, and the catastrophic consequences, were the result of multiple failures in Leonardo’s design process, including a key design alteration it had made in other helicopter variants to mitigate one of the risks, that it did not use in the accident helicopter.
That design alteration alone may have prevented the total loss of control of the helicopter and the death of all those onboard. It also alleges that the manufacturer failed to warn customers or regulators about the risk.
“We have reflected on the conclusions of the AAIB report and thought carefully about how we wished to proceed,” said Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, who succeeded his father as chairman of Leicester City and King Power.
“My father trusted Leonardo when he bought that helicopter but the conclusions of the report into his death show that his trust was fatally misplaced. I hold them wholly responsible for his death,” the statement quoted him as saying.
The family have retained the British aviation law firm Stewarts to represent them, together with senior barristers Philip Shepherd KC and Harry Steinberg KC.
Peter Neenan, a partner at Stewarts, said: “Leonardo’s customers include national militaries, air ambulances and other first responders across the globe. It is critical that all operators of these helicopters have faith and confidence in the machines.”