The family of Thai businessman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who lost his life in a 2018 helicopter crash, has filed a $2.65 billion lawsuit against Italian helicopter manufacturer Leonardo in London.
The family said in a statement on Friday that the action, which seeks damages for lost wages and other losses, is the largest fatal accident claim in English history.
Srivaddhanaprabha purchased Leicester City, a football team in central England, in 2010. Under his ownership, Leicester won the English Premier League in 2016. Known for his generosity, he invested heavily in the team, its facilities, and its community. Fans loved him not just for winning but for treating them like family.
The helicopter crashed shortly after taking off from Leicester City’s King Power Stadium after a Premier League game. Pilot Eric Swaffer, his partner Izabela Roza Lechowicz, and two employees of Srivaddhanaprabha, Nusara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare in 2018.
According to a 2023 report by Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), the pilot of the Leonardo AW169 helicopter was unable to recover from a tail rotor failure that caused the helicopter crash.
Following that report, Leonardo declared that its AW169 helicopters were still safe to fly and that the AAIB had determined that the AW169’s design and manufacturing met all legal requirements.
Odds of a Helicopter Crash
According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), helicopters crash faster than aeroplanes. The crash rate for general aircraft is 7.28 crashes per 100,000 hours of flight time. For helicopters, that number is 9.84 per 100,000 hours.
Statistics show that the odds of being in a crash are very low percentage-wise. The fatal accident rate (the number of accidents that resulted in one or more fatalities) for all helicopters in the United States over the past five years was 0.73 per 100,000 flight hours, according to a recent report from the U.S. Helicopter Safety Team.
