Delays investigating the fatal Leicester City helicopter crash were a “national disgrace”, a coroner has been told.
Club chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and four other people died in the crash outside the King Power Stadium on 27 October 2018.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch’s (AAIB) final report on the accident was published last September.
An inquest is now not expected to begin until early in 2025.
At a pre-inquest review on Thursday, Philip Shepherd, who represents Mr Vichai’s family, stated that delays in finishing the AAIB’s probe had made relatives’ suffering “immeasurably worse”.
“My clients had before them the greatest tragedy of their lives and it is not over by a long shot,” he stated.
“Families of those who died will not be able to find closure until the inquiry is done and the inquest is held.
“Those I represent have had to live with the anguish of that terrible night knowing finality has not been brought to them, by this inquest, year after year”
The crash also claimed the lives of the helicopter’s pilots, Eric Swaffer and Izabela Roza Lechowicz, as well as two members of Mr Vichai’s staff, Nusara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare.
ReutersMr Shepherd told the hearing, at City Hall in Leicester: “The latent factor here has been the fact that the final AAIB report into this extremely serious incident, that took the lives of five good people, took one month short of five years.
“The delay was a national disgrace.”
He told the hearing the crash had been of “world-wide interest” and the investigation had been “dragged out”.
The public as well as the victims’ families deserved to know why, he said.
However, he stated that while speed was suitable for the investigation, “it was more important that proper processes were followed and the correct result was achieved.”
When the final investigation was issued, it concluded that a tail rotor bearing seized, causing the helicopter to crash.
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